CHICAGO — Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown.
The clash began Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s Far South Side, witnesses said. An SUV driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby.
After the crash, dozens of additional immigration agents in masks arrived and residents emerged from their houses, gathering on streets and sidewalks, throwing objects at agents and shouting, “ICE go home!”
As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that the federal agents were conducting an immigration enforcement operation when two people tried to flee and hit the agents’ vehicle.
“This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers,” the DHS said in a statement. The statement said that federal agents used “crowd control measures” after a group of people gathered and turned hostile.
It was one of many turbulent episodes to erupt in Chicago in recent days. Federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol have roamed the city and suburbs making arrests, often pulling up to people walking along sidewalks, stopping them and questioning them.
The agents repeatedly have been observed releasing smoke bombs, tear gas and pepper balls to disperse residents who gather or capture videos on cellphones, including when the agents were making arrests in densely populated neighborhoods. Chicago police officers, who have been called to the scenes of some clashes, have been exposed to tear gas from federal agents twice in the last two weeks.
As the intensity of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has risen, residents of Chicago are increasingly pushing back with fury.
In the last several weeks, Chicagoans have formed volunteer groups to monitor their neighborhoods for federal immigration agents, posting alerts on Facebook and in Signal group chats when agents are seen.
If agents are spotted on the street, motorists lean on their horns as a warning and sometimes give chase. Around the city last weekend, pairs of volunteers were seen with orange whistles around their necks, blowing the whistles at the first sight of immigration agents.
One Chicago resident, Chris Molitor, stationed himself on a street corner on the North Side on Tuesday, holding a sign denouncing President Donald Trump and wearing a shirt critical of ICE.
“We’re seeing videos of people being abused,” said Molitor, 64, who works in hospitality, nodding in the direction of a local taqueria whose owners were questioned by ICE. “There’s got to be a pushback of some kind.”
Last month, Andre Vasquez, a City Council member who is chair of Chicago’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, sponsored a “community defense workshop” to inform residents of their rights and help them organize politically.
“Chicago’s been doing just fine, and then these guys showed up,” Vasquez said of federal immigration officers. “There is big concern about what these unidentified, masked men are doing in this city without accountability. Chicagoans are just trying to live their life. We’re not going to tolerate unconstitutional authoritarianism.”
Bystanders have posted videos of arrests that appear unrelated to violations of immigration law.
Debbie Brockman, an employee of TV station WGN, was pinned to the ground and arrested by Border Patrol agents Friday while walking to a bus stop. A Border Patrol official said that Brockman had thrown an object at federal agents. Brockman’s lawyer called the arrest an attack. Brockman was released without charges.
Yarelly Jimenez, 21, a resident of Chicago’s East Side neighborhood, said that immigration arrests had been the talk of the neighborhood and among her family.
Jimenez and two others were recording federal agents in a Walgreens on Tuesday and hurriedly left the store to get away from them, she said.
Inside, shoppers yelled at federal agents, videos taken by bystanders show. “Real Americans don’t want you here!” one man said.
An agent grabbed one of Jimenez’s companions, Warren King, 19, on his way out, asking him why he was running and pinning him to the ground. It was uncertain what King was accused of, and DHS officials did not immediately provide a reason for his arrest.
Video taken by another bystander and posted to social media captured Jimenez shouting at the agent in a panic.
“He’s a citizen!” she said.
Julie Bosman wrote this article that originally appeared in The New York Times. Robert Chiarito and Arijeta Lajka contributed reporting.
Embedded video courtesy of USA Today, Youtube, and the open free Internet. Photos courtesy of Jamie Kelter Davis.
