A week ago, a federal judge forbade agents from using gas and other “riot control” weapons without warning in Chicago as they carried out President Donald Trump’s deportation blitz.
That same judge took the bench early Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, and she told one of Trump’s lawyers, bluntly, “I’m not blind.”
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis cited reports in the Chicago Sun-Times and other media that have given her “serious concerns” about whether the Trump administration has followed her order in recent days.
Then she insisted that Russell Hott, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Chicago field office, appear in her courtroom Monday to clarify what’s going on.
“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 before it was deployed,” Ellis said.
Ellis also said she would be modifying the temporary restraining order she entered last week to require body cameras on ICE agents carrying out Trump’s so-called “Operation Midway Blitz.” The details of that modification still needed to be ironed out Thursday morning.
The judge’s actions drew praise from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday.
He expressed support for requiring federal agents to have functioning body cameras on them. Pritzker said those agents “clearly lie about what’s going on” after interacting with protesters.
“They put out a press release immediately at Homeland Security that doesn’t reflect the truth, and it’s hard for us to know right away what the truth is. So it takes us a couple of days. Often, it’s some of you in the reporter community and the media that discover what the truth is and talk to people who are on the ground. And then, what do you know, it turns out they’ve been lying,” Pritzker said of the feds.
“I’m glad the judge is stepping up, doing the right thing,” the governor continued.
Though Ellis called the early morning hearing herself, the case has been closely watched after the use of tear gas Sunday in Albany Park and in a residential neighborhood on the Southeast Side on Tuesday following a chase where federal agents rammed an SUV. In both instances, a crowd of onlookers had gathered to protest the agents.
Plaintiffs in the case include media organizations such as the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago, and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents reporters who work at the Sun-Times.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in a court filing late Wednesday that “Officers appear to be using violence, tear gas, and other munitions against protestors and journalists. Young children and even babies appear to have been subjected to the indiscriminate use of tear gas” by federal officers.
Still, they told the judge that the Trump administration doesn’t believe her order has been violated “at all.” And during Thursday’s hearing, Justice Department lawyer Sean Skedzielewski insisted that reporting on the Albany Park incident “is just inaccurate.”
Witnesses said they heard no warning before the use of gas in Albany Park, and no warnings can be heard on videos of the incident showing the scene leading up to the gas being thrown in the middle of a residential street.
Ellis then asked about the incident on the Southeast Side, in which local security cameras captured agents intentionally crashing into a car in a risky maneuver restricted by some police departments nationwide.
Ellis told Skedzielewski: “We’re not on the border. We are in an urban, densely populated area.” And, she said: “There’s a reason the Chicago Police Department has policies.”
“It could certainly be that these journalists got it wrong, which is why I want to hear from the field director on Monday,” Ellis said. “But there’s enough there that definitely gives me pause and concern.”
The judge said the use of body cameras by agents would help sort out any confusion about what happened. Unlike cellphone cameras that are often whipped out after something occurs, body cameras “pick up events before the triggering event happens,” she said.
But Skedzielewski said body cameras have not been rolled out for ICE officers in the Chicago area.
A $25 million body camera pilot program for ICE officers was discontinued soon after Trump took office, according to a former ICE chief of staff in the Biden administration.
Given the shutdown of the federal government, Skedzielewski said, “I don’t believe that it will be possible, on a short timeline, to roll out a body-cam program in the Chicago [area of responsibility] for ICE.”
He also complained about the logistics of sorting through those videos every time an alleged incident occurs.
Ellis told him, “There’s, you know, a simple way to not have to do that though, right?”
After a long pause, Skedzielewski insisted that, “I think we’re going to enforce federal law.”
The judge asked Skedzielewski to work out a modified order with the plaintiffs’ lawyers. And, she said, “If everybody kind of follows what’s outlined in this [temporary restraining order], conforms their decisions and behavior to what the Constitution demands, then, you know, all copacetic.”
She said both sides could then go on and “live our lives.”
Neither the reporter nor editors working on this story — which include some represented by the News Guild — have been involved in this lawsuit.