Faculty union leaders at the University of Chicago are demanding the administration break its silence over recent immigration enforcement activity targeting neighborhoods around the Hyde Park campus. The protest centers on Operation Midway Blitz, a federal effort by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to apprehend undocumented immigrants with criminal records in the Chicago area.
In a coordinated press conference, representatives from five campus labor groups—including faculty, graduate workers, and service employees—called on university leadership to take a public stand against the raids. Critics accuse the school of moral failure for maintaining a neutral position while federal agents reportedly conduct arrests near university housing and affiliated communities.
Diana Schwartz Francisco, an assistant professor in the history department, claimed these operations directly affect the university’s neighborhood. “They’re happening in our neighborhoods,” she said, urging the administration to act beyond academic detachment. The union bloc argued that the school’s silence creates a sense of complicity and fear among students and staff with ties to immigrant communities.
Jeffrey Howard, Executive Vice President of SEIU Local 73, went further, accusing the university of enabling what he called a “fascist regime” by refusing to condemn federal immigration policy. He argued that elite institutions like UChicago have a responsibility to shape moral and civic discourse, not simply comply with the law.
So far, university officials have made no commitment to alter policy or release a public statement. Faculty activists insist that legal neutrality does not absolve the institution from what they believe is a moral obligation to stand against immigration enforcement in academic spaces.
