A federal judge in Chicago said on Thursday that she was “profoundly concerned” that federal agents might have violated a court order that she had issued setting strict limits on their use of tear gas and requiring them to give protesters warnings to disperse.
During a 55-minute hearing, Judge Sara L. Ellis of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said she would order the director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Chicago field office to appear in her courtroom on Monday morning. She also said she would broaden her initial order, issued last week, to require federal agents to wear body cameras.
The order is focused on Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s deportation effort in the Chicago area that began in September. As agents from Border Patrol and ICE have started conducting high-profile raids, Chicago area residents have protested, especially near an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, Ill. Residents have also clashed with immigration agents as the agents have carried out operations along Chicago streets, episodes that have sometimes ended with agents using tear gas to disperse crowds.
The Trump administration has said that the protests amount to a “rebellion” that justify the deployment of National Guard troops. That effort remains blocked for now, by a different federal judge’s ruling in a separate lawsuit.
Thursday’s proceeding before Judge Ellis, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, sets the stage for what could be a high-stakes confrontation next week with Russell Hott, the director of ICE’s Chicago field office. “The field director is going to explain to me why I am seeing images of tear gas being deployed and reading reports that there were no warnings given out in the field,” she said.
During the hearing, a Justice Department attorney, Sean Skedzielewski, pushed back on some of the allegations, saying that federal agents had given warnings to protesters who gathered at one point in the Albany Park neighborhood, where tear gas was used.
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