A new online project backed by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's administration is documenting hundreds of people it says were detained, deported, separated from their families or otherwise harmed by the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts, creating what organizers describe as a public record of President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign.
The new site, called Disappeared in America, is backed by Pritzker's Illinois Accountability Commission and documents roughly 500 stories of immigrants and American citizens who say they were impacted by current U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, including during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago.
The launch comes amid an escalating political battle over immigration enforcement, with the White House touting arrests of alleged gang members, murder suspects and other criminal offenders, while critics argue large-scale operations have swept up many immigrants with no criminal record and led to multiple civil liberties violations.
"Our end goal with this is honestly, our end goal with this is that this can never happen again. So that's where we're leading up to. That's our road. Our road is to lead to never again," Beatriz Lopez, co-founder and executive director of the Democracy Power Project, told Newsweek ahead of the site's launch.
"What the, what the governor's office and the governor himself has done is really build a roadmap of how accountability can work, how we can showcase the stories, the people's voices, and really bring the perpetrators to account," she added. "There's obviously more that can be done, but a state can only do so much, and what the governor's office has done is really push, as far as he can to lift up the stories, to hold this administration accountable, and really be a model for other states going through very similar situations."
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In a statement to Newsweek, Pritzker said the Trump administration had launched "an unprecedented military-style assault against our communities, sending thousands of masked federal agents to harass, intimidate, and abuse our people," last year.
"Administration officials allowed agents to act unconscionably and told them their actions would be immune from investigation or accountability—they are not," Pritzker said. "There will come a time where people of good faith are empowered to uphold the law, and Illinois will support the pursuit of justice to its fullest extent.”
What Is Disappeared in America?
The new site is an interactive database of nearly 500 documented cases, including those of Lorenza Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, who were shot dead by ICE agents in Texas and Maine, respectively, in July, as well as Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in January.
Other stories from detention and deportation proceedings are also laid out, with each person having a profile, some containing photos, video and audio recordings linked to their cases. Lopez told Newsweek about one story, which had been turned into an animated video to illustrate what had happened to a girl named Ophelia.
"It is about this young girl and she tells the story of how her father was arrested, and it's really a very sad story, but also one that sort of reflects the story of many daughters and sons who are seeing what is happening to their parents," Lopez said. "In this case, this young girl has cancer, and so she's going through this and she's seen what happened to her dad."
While 500 stories are documented so far, over 605,000 people are said to have been deported under the second Trump administration, while 400,000 have been detained by ICE and 33 people have been killed, the site says.
The advocates behind the site, with Democracy Power Project, say that enforcement actions are often reduced to numbers in government announcements and that news stories about specific cases often fade.
The goal, organizers say, is to create a public historical record, which others can add to over time.
How Pritzker Fits In: Operation Midway Blitz
The Illinois Accountability Commission (IAC) was created by the state's Democratic governor in October 2025, amid Operation Midway Blitz, which was ICE's sweeping enforcement activity in Chicago and the surrounding area.
The operation sparked widespread criticism from Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and other leaders, as local protesters clashed with federal agents, and local law enforcement were brought in to try to keep the peace.
Agents were accused of abusing their positions, from how they carried out raids of Chicago apartment buildings, to the treatment of local police and reporters, and the IAC was the first state effort to investigate federal officers and their activities as the operation unfolded.
“The Illinois Accountability Commission was possible because people had the courage to come forward and tell the truth about what they and their communities were experiencing," Hina Mahmood, group executive director, said in a press release.
"They trusted us with their stories at a moment when many people were afraid to speak, and together they created a record that could not have been built by any one person or institution alone. Disappeared in America builds on that spirit of collective action, carrying the stories gathered in Illinois into a national effort to make sure people have a way to document what is happening in their own communities.”
Pritzker took a central role in forming the commission and in seeking to hold the federal government to account over its actions, as a part of wider efforts in Democratic states and cities accused of failing to work with ICE on immigration enforcement, despite this largely being seen as a federal issue.
Competing Narratives Over ICE Actions
The new site highlights the competing messages and sentiments around immigration enforcement across the U.S.
Those who fall on the side of those behind the new website argue that large numbers of those detained by ICE do not have criminal convictions—which the Trump administration said would be the group it would prioritize.
Critics have also said that ICE has separated families, including those with mixed immigration statuses, and that some communities have experienced particularly aggressive immigration enforcement, including Chicago.
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The Department of Homeland Security and the wider Trump administration, along with its supporters, have argued that ICE operations do target dangerous offenders, such as those with alleged gang ties or convictions for violent offenses.
In its messaging, the federal government has maintained focus on the detainees who fall within these groups, including through its own dedicated webpage to recent arrests, while also insisting that those who enter the U.S. illegally have broken the law and are, therefore, eligible for enforcement action.
"ICE law enforcement officers are held to the highest professional standard, and officers regularly receive ongoing training," an ICE spokesperson told Newsweek Wednesday. "As our brave law enforcement arrests and removes dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our communities, America can be proud of the professionalism our officers bring the job day-in and day-out. To most Americans are ICE officers are heroes as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists."
What Happens Next
Lopez said the project's main goal is greater accountability, with other states that have seen ICE operations also set to join in the coming months.
"We want to capture not only the stories, but also the work of the states that are doing their part to hold this administration accountable," Lopez said. "And it's going to serve a greater purpose for [a] future Congress and for a future president, [this] is going to be our mandate to them: we must hold ICE accountable. We have to have real policy changes that ensure that this can never happen again."
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Edward T. Cummins