One Year After Midway Blitz, Tribune Reporters Reflect on Pulitzer-Winning Coverage

CHICAGO — Over 100 people gathered Saturday to hear Chicago Tribune journalists share their experiences reporting on Operation Midway Blitz, coverage that earned the newsroom a 2026 Pulitzer Prize.

The panelists featured Chicago Tribune staffers Gregory Royal Pratt, Laura Rodríguez Presa, Andrew Carter, and Erika Slife. They spoke as part of the 41st Annual Printers Row Lit Fest.

“Midway Blitz really became a test of my career as a journalist,” Rodríguez Presa said, adding that the panel was happening on September 12, the one-year anniversary of when Silverio Villegas González was killed in Franklin Park by ICE agents.

“I think that is one of the most impactful and memorable, in a bad way, incidents that happened during Midway Blitz,” she said about Villegas González’s death, which happened four days after the federal operation began. A year later, questions remain unanswered about the shooting.

“The government quickly published its version of what had happened and accused Silverio of trying to run over the agents. And everyone went with it, every outlet, and those were the headlines dominating the news. Then we come to find out that that’s not necessarily what happened, right?” Rodríguez Presa said. “I think that taught us a lot as we covered this, and we are still following this case as his family continues to try to seek the adoption of the two children. They only had their father, and their father was killed.”

Pratt explained that the coverage brought real challenges and risks, to the point that federal agents would follow their work. 

“It was [former U.S. Border Patrol Commander] Greg Bovino who became my biggest Twitter follower. He tweeted at me like 15 times, including after he left Chicago, including stories that had nothing to do with immigration or Chicago,” Pratt said.  

Pratt noted that it was mildly intimidating.

“Laura got a lot of heat too, less directly from Bovino, but more from all sorts of freaks and sometimes from Homeland Security itself,” Pratt added. “I always thought it was interesting that it was the two Latinos who were getting the targeting and the focus there.” 

When a family of four was detained in public by federal immigration agents at Millennium Park last September,  Pratt described it as a political statement intended to make people feel unsafe and discourage them from going about their daily lives.

“The raid on Millennium Park was a political statement. It was an attempt to declare that nobody is safe and that they are not safe anywhere. We’re not just coming to the neighborhoods. If you’re chilling out by the Bean, we’re going to get you,” Pratt said, noting that Bovino has “since talked about how his approach to Midway Blitz and immigration enforcement was about instilling terror in a community.”

The reporters played a key role in the newsroom’s daily coverage, often working from early morning at protests and immigration enforcement operations despite difficult conditions.

“Somebody has to record history. It has to be us,” Slife said.

When asked about some of the incidents that have stuck with them when reporting, Carter recalled the September 30, 2025 South Shore apartment raid, which detained 37 people during the operation. 

“Seeing the aftermath of that, people’s belongings just piled up, thrown out. I remember just seeing a little girl’s pink teddy bear in a stairwell. That really stuck with me. A child’s bicycle in a hallway,” Carter said. “Just seeing little touches of these lives that were shattered and what people had to leave behind because of that, wrapped up and taken away to detention centers. Those people never had a chance to even come back and get their stuff.”

Slife explained that the newsroom’s coverage of immigration enforcement began about a year before Operation Midway Blitz, as political rhetoric around immigration intensified. In response, editors developed a coverage plan that included weekend shifts and additional staffing to ensure the newsroom was prepared to cover developments.

“Leading up to Midway Blitz, we had a plan just in case the National Guard came. I had written it all out — what we would do if that happened. The National Guard didn’t come because of the court system, but Border Patrol did. We were able to use that template to extend our coverage right away,” Slife said.

Hector Cervantes is a freelance writer based in Chicago who enjoys covering stories related to Latin culture, entertainment, and community.

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Mexican Independence Day Parade in Little Village: From CBS News Chicago, “After months of immigration enforcement in their community, organizers say they want to move forward no matter what this year brings.” September 16 is Mexican Independence Day.

States Sue Green Card Policies: Via The Guardian, “A coalition of 22 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Monday over a new policy that would allow individual immigration officers to deny green cards based on use of public benefits.”

Julio Ricardo Varela edited and published this edition of The Latino Newsletter.

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