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Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the State of Illinois sued the Trump administration Monday for what it says is the Department of Homeland Security’s “dangerous use of force” and “coordinated campaign of violence and intimidation” dressed up as legitimate immigration enforcement.
“The Trump administration has unleashed an organized bombardment on the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago, causing turmoil and imposing a climate of fear,” the lawsuit alleges. “Though Defendants describe this assault as ‘immigration enforcement,’ the reality is that uniformed, military-trained personnel, carrying semi-automatic firearms and military-grade weaponry, have rampaged for months through Chicago and surrounding areas, lawlessly stopping, interrogating, and arresting residents, and attacking them with chemical weapons.”
Moreover, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents — overseen by Border Patrol official Greg Bovino and DHS Secretary Krisiti Noem — are part of an “occupation” in Chicago and its suburbs that is ultimately meant to “coerce” state officials into abandoning their own immigration policies, the lawsuit alleges.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
In recent months, Chicago has seen the Trump administration send immigration agents to storm apartment complexes, deploy chemical agents near schools and even handcuff a Chicago city council member at a hospital. At least two people have been shot by agents, and over 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since a crackdown began in September.
It’s also part of a broader pattern of immigration crackdowns across the nation: The lawsuit from Illinois arrives the same day that the State of Minnesota sued the administration to stop an enforcement surge by ICE following the fatal shooting of Renee Good.
AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato
Trump issued an executive order in April that created a list of national sanctuary cities, including Chicago. The order directed Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi to assess whether the so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” were in compliance with the administration’s federal immigration operations. The Justice Department then sued Illinois and Cook County, claiming “interference” in federal affairs. By July, a judge had dismissed the administration’s claim, finding the state’s immigration policies were protected by the 10th Amendment.
The Trump administration also attempted to withhold federal funding from Illinois unless it went along with federal immigration enforcement tactics instead of upholding its own laws, like the 2017 Trust Act or the Way Forward Act. The Trust Act bars state law enforcement officers from arresting people solely on their immigration status; the Way Forward Act expanded limits on how state and local law enforcement assist federal immigration operations.
After a judge ruled in September that the administration’s withholding of federal funds was a violation of the Constitution — it is Congress that controls the purse, not the president, the judge found — Trump lashed out.
Pritzker’s lawyers recounted the incident in Monday’s lawsuit.
First, an “angered” Trump threatened to “unleash a military assault” on Chicago, the lawsuit notes, by posting an AI-generated image of himself dressed as a military officer from the film “Apocalypse Now.” Trump rebranded it “Chipocalypse Now,” in reference to Chicago, and wrote in the post: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” and “Chicago is about to learn why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
Trump federalized the Illinois National Guard over Pritzker’s objections and deployed troops in October, claiming Chicago was awash in violence against federal immigration agents. At the time, Pritzker slammed the president for manufacturing a crisis where none existed and sued to stop the deployment of troops.
A judge temporarily blocked the National Guard’s deployment to Chicago, and Trump went to the Supreme Court for help, to no avail. The justices ruled in December that the temporary restraining order would stay in place and that “the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.”
Despite those rulings, Pritzker alleges that now, Border Patrol agents who are unqualified to conduct removal operations have flooded Illinois to scare and intimidate residents.
Among the many tactics deployed by these federal “quasi-military” forces are masked patrols along the Chicago River where personnel in tactical gear carry rifles and question residents about their immigration status, the lawsuit claims. These agents gather in huge numbers and brandish military gear and weapons around downtown Chicago, and they have conducted “military style raids” on Chicago apartment buildings, seizing residents and searching the premises.
via Associated Press
“Agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter into a South Shore, Chicago apartment building, and arrested and detained without warrant dozens of people, including multiple United States citizens, some of whom were children. Agents pulled people from their beds in the dead of night, zip-tied their hands and detained them in buses or vans. Agents also ransacked residents’ apartments, kicked down doors, emptied bookshelves, and overturned mattresses,” the lawsuit claims.
Illinois says biometric data is also being taken from residents without their consent and that civilians are being indiscriminately teargassed as raids are conducted near courthouses, domestic violence shelters, hospitals and schools.
Parents have been arrested and separated from their children, teachers have been dragged out of their classrooms, and people have needlessly died, the lawsuit emphasized.
“The chaos and violence that Border Patrol’s tactics have unleashed on Plaintiffs has resulted in two shootings by immigration officers, one of them fatal,” attorneys for the state wrote.
An ICE officer shot and killed a 38-year-old father of two, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, in September, after he had dropped his 3-year-old son off at day care.
In a statement after the shooting, DHS accused Villegas-Gonzalez of refusing to follow law enforcement commands and said he “drove his car at law enforcement officers.”
“One of the ICE officers was hit by the car and dragged a significant distance. Fearing for his own life, the officer fired his weapon,” the statement said.
In a description eerily reminiscent of the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, lawyers for the state and Pritzker pointed out that “videos of the incident did not corroborate DHS’s assertion that the shooting officer was ‘seriously injured.’”
Border Patrol agent Charles Exum shot Chicago resident and U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez five times in October and was reportedly found to be bragging about it to co-workers in a Signal group text, per WTTW Chicago Public Media.
“I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book, boys,” Exum allegedly wrote.
“Federal authorities initially claimed that Exum opened fire on Ms. Martinez only after she rammed into his vehicle—but the federal criminal case against Ms. Martinez was dismissed after body worn camera footage captured another CBP agent with his hands on his assault rifle, saying ‘Do something, bitch,’ just before Exum fired five shots into Ms. Martinez,” the lawsuit claims.
Pritzker and the State of Illinois have asked a judge to issue an order that would stop Customs and Border Protection agents from conducting civil immigration enforcement in the state as well as an order that halts what it describes as the Trump administration’s roving patrols, nonconsensual biometric scans, warrantless arrests, teargassing of citizens, trespassing on private property and hiding of identifying information like license plates on official vehicles.
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