OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:48 PM – Thursday, October 16, 2025
A U.S. District Judge has ordered federal immigration agents in Chicago to wear body cameras during enforcement actions.
Judge Sara Ellis issued the directive following multiple incidents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” including the use of tear gas and other crowd-control measures against unruly rioters and protesters.
“The field director is going to explain to me why I am seeing images of tear gas being deployed and reading reports that there were no warnings given out in the field,” Ellis said during a court hearing this week, according to The New York Times.
The ongoing protests have escalated into violent riots, with out-of-control demonstrators hurling projectiles at police, prompting authorities to disperse the crowds and arrest those involved in the violence.
The increasingly violent protests even culminated in federal agents being “rammed into and boxed in by 10 cars on October 4th, prompting federal agents to shoot one of the drivers, who was armed with a semi-automatic weapon, according to Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
On Tuesday, Venezuelan illegal aliens Luis Gerardo Pirela-Ramirez and Yonder Enrique Tenefe-Perez were arrested in Chicago after they rammed their car into a U.S. Border Patrol SUV during an immigration enforcement operation. Pirela-Ramirez had a prior deportation order from August last year, while Tenefe-Perez was previously apprehended last year. After the initial crash, agents used a PIT “precision immobilization technique” maneuver to immobilize the fleeing vehicle. As law enforcement secured the area, a crowd formed and became hostile, throwing objects at agents, prompting the use of crowd control measures to restore order.
Amid the continuing clashes, Ellis has ordered ICE agents to begin wearing body cameras—just one week after mandating visible identification badges and prohibiting the use of certain riot-control tactics.
“I’m getting images and seeing images on the news, in the paper, reading reports where I’m having concerns about my order being followed,” Ellis stated last week. “I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed. And I’m not blind, right?”
“I am adding that all agents who are operating in Operation Midway Blitz are to wear body-worn cameras, and they are to be on,” she stated alongside the updated order, referring to the government-named immigration operation based in Illinois.
In response, Justice Department attorney Sean Skedzielewski asserted that the judge’s orders are clearly based on “one-sided and selectively edited media reports,” and he also contended that it would not be feasible to immediately distribute body cameras to all agents.
“I understand that. I would not be expecting agents to wear body-worn cameras they do not have,” Ellis stated, adding that the body cameras would provide further evidence and transparency in regard to the ways federal agents confront unruly protestors.
The federal judge ordered the field director of the enforcement effort to appear in court on Monday.
Ellis is the latest federal judge to issue a directive related to President Trump’s mass deportation campaign, following a series of orders from other judges that have temporarily blocked the deployment of the National Guard to cities across the United States.
Most recently, an appeals court upheld a federal judge’s order on Thursday, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from deploying 500 National Guard troops to Chicago.
“We conclude that the district court’s factual findings at this preliminary stage were not clearly erroneous, and that the facts do not justify the president’s actions in Illinois … even giving substantial deference to his assertions,” the three-judge panel wrote in the Thursday ruling.
“This administration remains barred from deploying the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.”
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