Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area have been ordered by a court to wear body cameras after they repeatedly deployed pepper balls, smoke grenades and tear gas against protesters and local police, seemingly in violation of a federal judge’s ruling from last week.
Sara Ellis, a US district judge, who had previously required immigration agents to wear badges and banned them from using riot-control techniques such as tear gas without warning, railed on Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) continued aggressive tactics, many of which have been caught on camera, and which appear to violate her order.
“I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed,” she said on Thursday. “And I’m not blind, right?”
Ellis added: “I’m getting images and seeing images on the news, in the paper, reading reports where I’m having concerns about my order being followed.”
Her new requirement of immigration officers using body cameras comes as Chicago has become the latest focal point of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign in recent weeks, with forceful federal enforcement, led by Ice but also including other agencies, and as DHS has been relying on extreme strategies against immigrants and citizens alike, in the Chicago area and elsewhere.
At the same time, locals in Chicago have been organizing to prevent arrests within their communities, while DHS has compared those efforts to “rioting” and said it “is taking reasonable and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers”.
On Tuesday, after federal agents led a car chase and caused a multi-car collision, protesters chanted “Ice go home” and threw objects at the agents, who, seemingly without warning, threw tear gas in the direction of the protesters – and 13 Chicago police officers who were also on the scene.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, a masked agent cursed at protesters, ordering them to back away while pinning a 19-year-old, Warren King, to the sidewalk, while a witness shouted “he’s a citizen,” and it was unclear why King was under arrest, the New York Times reported.
On Sunday, when attorney Samay Gheewala tried to ask agents for a warrant as they detained an immigrant in his neighborhood, he was shoved to the ground so hard his hands bled. Agents later threw tear gas toward the crowd of protesters that had amassed.
Meanwhile, some local schoolchildren ended up obliged to stay indoors for recess after tear gas filled the streets near their playground.
Similar anecdotes have emerged across the country, even as former immigration officials warn that arrests appear to be indiscriminate and sweeping under the pressure that the Trump administration has imposed on officers to deport as many people as possible.
“They don’t seem to care whether or not those people pose a threat to public safety,” John Sandweg, a former acting Ice director, told Politico. “They just say, ‘If you’re undocumented, you’re a fair target.’”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
