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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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Chicago Police Department officers were caught in clouds of tear gas during clashes with protesters in the city on Saturday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed the chemical agent.
Newsweek has contacted the Chicago Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment via email outside office hours.
Why It Matters
Chicago has been a key battleground city in the White House's efforts to escalate federal immigration enforcement, with recent weeks seeing more confrontations between federal agents and protesters and journalists at an ICE facility in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago. Videos showing agents deploying tear gas, firing pepper balls, and forcibly throwing protesters to the ground have circulated widely, amid the administration’s hard-line crackdown.
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What To Know
According to footage filmed by witness Ryan Garza, several officers can be seen rubbing their eyes, squinting, and struggling with the aftereffects of the gas on October 4.
In the video, people nearby can be heard shouting “Wake up, wake up!” and “Arrest ICE” as the officers attempted to recover. News agency Storyful verified that tear gas was deployed during the protest.
Local officials have raised concerns about ICE’s use of crowd-control measures in the city.
Authorities have previously criticized the deployment of tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets, warning that they pose risks not only to protesters and bystanders, but also to police officers and firefighters working at the scene.
Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills said his officers had been exposed to tear gas multiple times during previous incidents involving ICE agents. Mills emphasized that the repeated exposure created a "dangerous situation" for the community and first responders.
He also noted that during a September 12 incident, an ICE agent verbally assaulted him while he was on the scene ensuring everyone's First Amendment rights were protected, adding that in his 37 years of working with federal agencies, such behavior had never occurred.
Tensions between ICE and local law enforcement in the Chicagoland area have escalated in recent weeks. Mills accused immigration agents of making false 911 calls, including one instance in which an agent reported someone tampering with a gate at the Broadview facility.
When officers responded, they found only a photographer and a security guard outside the building. Mills called the incident “disturbing” and noted it was part of a pattern of questionable calls and other aggressive actions by ICE agents, including the use of chemical agents and projectiles against journalists. He has opened criminal investigations and is considering legal action to hold the agency accountable.
Meanwhile, a cabinet-making business located next to the Broadview ICE processing facility reported that tear gas entered their warehouse and that employees were struck by pepper balls, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The crackdown comes amid Operation Midway Blitz, a federal initiative launched in early September to apprehend undocumented immigrants, particularly those with criminal records, across Chicago and Illinois.
Nearly 5,000 people have been detained in Illinois so far this year, according to data from The Deportation Data Project analyzed by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Multiple federal agencies, including ICE, the U.S. Border Patrol, the FBI, and the ATF, are coordinating the efforts. Critics have raised concerns about the aggressiveness of some raids, potential due-process violations, and the treatment of migrants in custody, amid growing national scrutiny of the administration’s immigration policies.
What People Are Saying
Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills said on September 30: “I was offended because, in my 37 years working with the Chicago Police Department, I’ve worked with a lot of federal agencies on criminal investigations, that has never happened. We might not always see eye-to-eye, but we find a way to work it out.”
What Happens Next
It remains unclear how many officers were affected during Saturday’s clashes, or whether any sustained serious injuries. Neither ICE nor the Chicago Police Department has issued a public statement on the incident.
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