Illinois panel's first meeting over federal misconduct focuses on chemical agents

Audio By Carbonatix

CHICAGO (AP) — A commission formed to document alleged harassment and abuse by federal agents during an immigration crackdown in the Chicago area reviewed the wide use of chemical agents in its first public hearing Thursday.

The immigration operation, which started in September, has been marked by aggressive tactics widely denounced by judges, elected leaders and a growing number of residents in the nation’s third-largest city and surrounding suburbs. Formed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, the commission is the latest resistance effort by a Democratic-led state to the Trump administration’s federal intervention, which critics say is discriminatory and an overreach of executive power.

“It’s going to be impossible to forget,” said Rubén Castillo, a former federal judge who leads the commission, of the immigration operation. “The one thing we cannot do is accept this. This cannot be the new normal.”

The meeting came as a Border Patrol commander — who was the face of the Chicago operation before leading similar crackdowns in North Carolina and Louisiana — surprisingly returned to the Chicago area this week.

More than 4,000 people have been arrested in the Chicago area crackdown, during which there was a fatal shooting by federal agents. The operation prompted multiple lawsuits and a new law that shields immigrants from arrests near courthouses, hospitals and schools. Other places where there's been intensified immigration enforcement have also fought back, including California, which launched a portal this month for residents to file complaints against federal agents of alleged misconduct.

There are limitations on what the Illinois commission can do, something members acknowledged as they played video clips and heard testimony of well-documented incidents, including an agent pepper spraying a toddler and her father. The commission cannot compel anyone to testify, bring charges or force legislation but they’ll issue a report next year with recommendations.

Members include attorneys, community leaders and retired judges who said their goal was to also create an accurate historic record of the impact on the community as the Trump administration's account of what happened often contradict what was seen and documented by firsthand witnesses.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its approach as appropriate in the face of growing threats to federal officers. The agency has touted efforts to arrest violent criminals, though public records of their first weeks in Chicago show the majority of arrestees didn’t have violent criminal records.

In a statement Thursday, the department's assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, blasted the commission as Pritzker's way of continuing “to smear law enforcement."

Community leaders have said the operation has been devastating to the community.

The hearing Thursday was held near Little Village, a neighborhood known as the “Mexico of the Midwest” that was among the hardest hit by immigration agents. Businesses reported slowdowns and schools noted drops in attendance as many residents have remained on edge.

“The narrative of removing dangerous criminals is simply not true,” Matt DeMateo, a pastor who leads New Life Centers, testified.

Senior Border Patrol Official Greg Bovino left the Chicago area last month. His surprise return, amid ongoing operations in New Orleans, prompted immediately backlash in the Democratic stronghold, with activists following agents as they patrolled throughout the city and suburbs. That included a confrontation Wednesday with the mayor of Evanston, an affluent Chicago suburb that’s home to Northwestern University.

Bovino posted last month about his conversation with Mayor Daniel Biss.

“Although he fell back into the divisive talking points that we’ve heard ad nauseum from politicians in Chicago, I hope it was enlightening to him,” Bovino said on the social platform X.

Biss, who is running for Congress, had a different take.

“We will not be intimidated,” he said in a statement posted to X with a picture of the Bovino interaction. “Get the hell out of our city.”