Immigration rights groups have seen a massive spike in hotline calls for legal and other help as federal Homeland Security officials this week launched a much-anticipated immigration enforcement surge in the Chicago area, the groups said Thursday.

“The Trump deportation machine is out of control, and it’s our communities and our families that are being torn apart,” Lawrence Benito, executive director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said Thursday at a news conference in Brighton Park, a heavily Latino neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Benito said the group’s family support hotline received 500 calls on Tuesday alone, the highest volume since January, with the “vast majority” reporting sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Before the start of the Trump administration, the hotline at 855-435-7693 received about 100 calls per month, he said.

Benito attributed the surge in hotline calls this week to a greater prevalence of federal officers, but also a community awareness of ICE activity.

“This is why ICE is having such a difficult time rounding people up in the numbers that they want — that they’re trying to change their tactics based on what their conditions are on the ground. And we have a very informed community that know their rights,” he said.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced the immigration enforcement surge dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” as he also this week seemingly backed off on a previous threat to send in the National Guard to the city to quell crime.

Though activists and the administration have reported ICE activity this week, the exact scale compared to previous sweeps since Trump took office in January remained unclear as of Thursday.

As Trump has zeroed in on Chicago over crime and immigration, activists said children attending school may have been affected.

Preliminary numbers show that Chicago Public Schools this school year have seen a drop in enrollment by 12,000 students, board member Yesenia Lopez said at the same news conference, “primarily English learners.”

Lopez said she didn’t know whether that drop was directly attributable to fears of immigration enforcement. The school district enrolled more than 325,300 students in the school year that started in 2024, according to the CPS website.

ICIRR did not have an estimate for the number of people detained this week. But the group’s leadership said that more people are being arrested than initially reported by the Trump administration, as activists know of different individuals who have been arrested than those who the administration has publicly posted about, ICIRR spokesperson Brandon Lee said.

Throughout the week, the Trump administration has released several headshots and names of individuals it says were arrested in the enforcement surge, who the administration said are the “worst of the worst” and have both been convicted of crimes and lack legal status.

A spokesperson for ICE said the agency has “arrested some of the worst offenders in Chicago, including gang members, murderers, child rapists, and drug traffickers, who have wreaked havoc on the community.”

As the federal efforts have ramped up, agents have been receiving limited logistical support from the Naval Station Great Lakes. On Thursday, U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, and U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider of Highland Park met with the U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, where the elected officials said they discussed the need for greater transparency about the federal operations.

Last week, the three Democratic lawmakers traveled to the naval base in North Chicago where they met with naval officials but were turned away from offices being used by Homeland Security.

“While the President and DHS officials dodge accountability and literally lock us out of buildings to avoid our oversight, I appreciate that Secretary Phelan accepted our invitation to speak about ensuring Naval Station Great Lakes does not get dragged into the President’s political theater,” Durbin said in a statement.

Duckworth added that she was “deeply concerned by how little transparency the Trump administration is providing when it comes to deploying federal agents and our troops into our cities to intimidate Americans in their own communities.”

Much of immigration enforcement activity in the Chicago area this week seemed concentrated in Cicero and in neighborhoods throughout the Southwest Side, including Brighton Park and Little Village, Lee of ICIRR said. But calls are coming in from throughout the city and suburbs, activists said.

The immigration justice-focused Resurrection Project has also seen an uptick this week in requests for legal services for people detained by immigration law enforcement, said Tovia Siegel, director of organizing and leadership.

And activists said they are continuing to monitor for any enforcement actions related to Mexican Independence Day celebrations, including a parade Sunday in Little Village, Benito said.

Trained volunteer peacekeepers will be present along the parade route, Benito said; Jennifer Aguilar, executive director of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce, previously said the parade will have private security, immigration lawyers and a rapid response team for immigration rights.

The Pilsen Mexican Independence Day Parade last weekend saw a lower turnout than previous years but went on as planned, also with a volunteer presence.

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