Chicago court hearing to focus on allegations that immigration agents used excessive force

CHICAGO — A judge will weigh on Wednesday how to respond to allegations that federal immigration agents in the Chicago area have used excessive force, following a surge of recent court filings detailing tense encounters between agents and local residents.

The preliminary injunction hearing stems from a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who say agents have used too much force, including tear gas, during demonstrations.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis has already ordered agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot-control techniques, such as tear gas, against peaceful protesters and journalists. After repeatedly chastising federal officials for not following her previous orders, she added a requirement for body cameras.

The hearing comes after Ellis questioned senior Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino at a public hearing last week, where she took the rare step of ordering him to brief her each evening on the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago. That move was swiftly blocked by an appeals court.

On Tuesday, Bovino appeared in court yet again for a deposition — a private interview — with lawyers from both sides. Parts of the videotaped deposition will be played in court Wednesday, according to court filings.

Attorneys may also call to the stand a pastor who was hit in the head by a container containing a chemical agent while praying outside a federal immigration facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview, local officials detained during protests outside the facility, and a protester who alleges she was hit by a flash-bang grenade that caused temporary hearing loss, court records show.

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Court filings released late Monday night shed light on a previous deposition by Bovino in which he acknowledged tossing tear gas and being hit by a rock in the predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood of Little Village last month. Bovino also testified that he has "instructed his officers to arrest protesters who make hyperbolic comments in the heat of political demonstrations," court records show.

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Meanwhile, a federal judge is expected to rule Wednesday afternoon after a group of detainees filed a class-action lawsuit against federal authorities, alleging "inhuman" conditions at a Chicago-area immigration facility.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman called the alleged conditions "unnecessarily cruel" after hearing people held at the facility detail overflowing toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that "tasted like sewer." He called for the hearing to reconvene at 4:15 p.m. local time Wednesday so that he can issue a temporary restraining order to address the conditions.