By CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — A senior Border Patrol official who has become the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago is due in court Tuesday to take questions about the enforcement operation in the Chicago area, which has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.
The hearing comes after a judge earlier this month ordered uniformed immigration agents to wear body cameras, the latest step in a lawsuit by news outlets and protesters who say federal agents used excessive force, including using tear gas, during protests against immigration operations.
Greg Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, one of nine sectors on the Mexican border, is himself accused of throwing tear gas canisters at protesters.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis initially said agents must wear badges, and she banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists. She later said she was concerned agents were not following her order after seeing footage of street confrontations involving tear gas during the administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, and she modified the order to also require body cameras.
Ellis last week extended questioning of Bovino from two hours to five because she wants to hear about agents’ recent use of force in the city’s Mexican enclave of Little Village. During an enforcement operation last week in Little Village and the adjacent suburb of Cicero, at least eight people, including four U.S. citizens, were detained before protesters gathered at the scene, local officials said.
The attorneys representing a coalition of news outlets and protesters claim Bovino himself violated the order in Little Village and filed a still image of video footage where he was allegedly “throwing tear gas into a crowd without justification.”
Over the weekend, masked federal agents and unmarked SUVs were spotted on the city’s wealthier, predominantly white North side neighborhoods of Lakeview and Lincoln Park, where footage showed chemical agents deployed on a residential street. Federal agents have been seen and videotaped deploying tear gas in residential streets a number of times over the past few weeks.
Bovino also led the immigration operation is Los Angeles in recent months, leading to thousands of arrests. Agents smashed car windows, blew open a door to a house and patrolled MacArthur Park on horseback. In Chicago, similar Border Patrol operations have led to viral footage of tense confrontations with protesters.
At a previous hearing, Ellis questioned Kyle Harvick, deputy incident commander with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Shawn Byers, deputy field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about their agencies’ use of force policies and the distribution of body cameras. Harvick said there are about 200 Border Patrol employees in the Chicago area, and those who are part of Operation Midway Blitz have cameras. But Byers said more money from Congress would be needed to expand camera use beyond two of that agency’s field offices.
