Judge Questions Gregory Bovino Over Immigration Crackdown Tactics

On Thursday, residents on Chicago’s Southwest Side confronted federal agents who were making immigration arrests, an episode that ended as agents used tear gas to drive people away.

Agents deployed tear gas again on Friday on the city’s North Side where residents gathered and yelled at them after they arrested a man who was working on a house.

Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official who has become a face of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, is expected to appear before a federal judge in Chicago on Tuesday amid a lawsuit over tactics that agents are using as they carry out enforcement operations in the Chicago area. The use of tear gas along residential streets, in particular, has become a point of contention seven weeks into the administration’s crackdown in Chicago.

The judge, Sara L. Ellis of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, ordered Mr. Bovino to appear in her courtroom without explaining why she wanted to question him. In interviews and on social media, Mr. Bovino has been a forceful defender of the immigration crackdown and the work of the Border Patrol, which has more than 200 agents deployed in Chicago.

Mr. Bovino could be questioned about his own use of tear gas, after he was recorded on video lobbing a canister of gas into the group of angry residents of Little Village, on the city’s Southwest Side.

The issue first came before Judge Ellis when a coalition of media organizations, protesters and clergy members filed a lawsuit accusing federal agents of “a pattern of extreme brutality” intended to “silence the press and civilians.” Outside a federal detention facility in Broadview, Ill., federal agents shot pepper balls and tear gas at protesters who have gathered regularly to hold demonstrations.

Earlier this month, Judge Ellis issued an order banning federal immigration agents from deploying tear gas and other chemical agents on a crowd without first issuing two warnings. She also banned agents from “deploying these weapons above the head of the crowd” in most situations.

The judge’s order left room for exceptions in cases where issuing such warnings was not feasible or if someone posed a serious threat to officers or others.

But even after the order, the Border Patrol’s use of tear gas has continued, including in residential neighborhoods late last week and over the weekend. In several cases, residents said, no warnings were given.

Sometimes, Border Patrol agents have appeared to be deploying tear gas when they encountered opposition from the public and wanted to leave the area.

Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a City Council member, saw Mr. Bovino holding a tear-gas canister during the skirmish in Little Village on Thursday and warned him not to use it.

“He is a danger to our community,” Mr. Sigcho-Lopez said. “Hopefully the judge will hold this commander to respect the law.”

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that the measures were necessary after agents were “swarmed by agitators.”

“The agitators obstructed federal law enforcement and ignored multiple warnings to disperse and continued to impede operations, including trying to deflate a vehicle’s tire,” the statement said. “Agents deployed crowd control measures to disperse the crowd and agitators began throwing objects at them.”

Several people have been seen pushing back physically on federal agents.

In a video filmed over the weekend, a woman could be seen shoving an agent and grabbing his cloth face mask before he pushed her to the ground.

A woman in Little Village was seen throwing an object at a Border Patrol vehicle, shattering its rear passenger window, as agents drove away from the scene of an arrest.

Jamie Leventhal contributed video editing.