Judge Orders Some Federal Agents to Wear Body Cameras in Chicago Area

The order comes as the Trump administration has carried out an immigration crackdown in the region.

A federal judge in Chicago issued on Friday an order requiring federal immigration agents who are already equipped with body cameras to turn them on while conducting immigration arrests and interacting with protesters and other members of the public in the Chicago area.

The ruling from Judge Sara L. Ellis of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is intended to monitor the government’s compliance with an earlier order setting strict limits on federal agents’ use of tear gas and requiring them to give protesters warnings to disperse. Both orders apply to 18 counties that span the northern part of Illinois, including all of the Chicago region.

The body camera requirement has several limitations. It applies to only immigration agents who already have cameras and have been trained to use them. Undercover agents are exempt, and agents don’t have to turn the cameras on in certain places, including jails and ports of entry. Judge Ellis gave the government until Oct. 24 to file with the court its policies implementing the new directive.

In a hearing on Thursday, Judge Ellis said she was “profoundly concerned” about whether the Trump administration was obeying her requirements that agents warn protesters to disperse and limit the use of tear gas. On Friday, Judge Ellis reiterated her demand that federal immigration officials appear in her courtroom next week to answer questions about how agents have behaved toward protesters and residents during a Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigration in recent weeks.

As agents from Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have conducted arrests and 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, using tear gas at times.

It was uncertain which federal official — a leader of ICE or of Customs and Border Protection — would appear before Judge Ellis in the hearing that is scheduled for Monday.

Judge Ellis suggested that she would be satisfied so long as it was “someone with knowledge” who can “tell what is happening and what has been happening over the last week.”

In court, a Justice Department lawyer raised logistical objections to the notion that agents would use body cameras, saying that would require extra personnel to review and redact video footage. In a court filing, the government argued that requiring cameras “would improperly draw the judiciary in overseeing law enforcement’s daily operations.”

It was unclear how many federal agents in the Chicago area were already equipped with the cameras. The cameras have been given to some homeland security officers for some time, in keeping with a 2022 executive order promoting their use.

The issues first came before Judge Ellis when a group of media organizations, journalists and protesters filed a lawsuit accusing federal agents of “a pattern of extreme brutality” intended to “silence the press and civilians.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Judge Ellis’s new order. On Thursday, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the department, said that requiring officers to wear body cameras would be “an extreme act of judicial activism.”

On Friday, Judge Ellis chided the government for what she perceived to be slowness in following her instruction a day earlier that the government’s lawyers compose proposed language for a new body camera requirement for her consideration.

“This was not a suggestion. It wasn’t a hint,” she said. “It was an order. So I will enter it today, and I will expect that it will be followed.”

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