ICE in Chicago Must Activate Body Cams Amid City-Wide Clashes

Oct. 18, 2025, 12:26 AM UTC

Federal agents participating in a Chicago-area immigration crackdown must activate their body-worn cameras if they have them, a federal judge ordered Friday, a day after she said she was concerned by agents apparently violating her previous order aimed at reducing the use of force against demonstrators.

Judge Sara L. Ellis ordered all federal agents equipped with cameras to use the surveillance devices in a directive issued Friday. Ellis issued the mandate after expressing suspicions that agents violated her previous order directing agents to wear visible identification and barring the use of weapons like tear gas except in certain circumstances.

“I’m not blind, right? I don’t live in a cave,” Ellis told attorneys at a hearing Thursday. “I’m getting images and seeing images on the news, in the paper, reading reports where, at least what I’m seeing, I’m having serious concerns that my order is being followed.”

Friday’s modified TRO requires federal agents who have been issued body-worn cameras to “activate them when engaged in enforcement activity” unless agency policy exempts their use. The order provides exemptions for undercover operations and agents who do not wear uniforms.

In a filing Friday before the order was issued, the Trump administration strongly objected to any body-worn camera mandate, but suggested language requiring camera activation only during crowd control efforts or activity “that is observable by Journalists, protestors, or religious practitioners, unless such activation would pose an impediment to public or officer safety.”

Ellis instead required the cameras’ use during “enforcement activity” overall, including “at-large” arrests, investigatory detentions and when responding to “public, unlawful/violent disturbances” at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

The underlying case was brought in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by a group of journalists, news advocacy organizations and protesters who claim that federal agents’ aggressive tactics violated their rights. Ellis has scheduled a hearing for Monday and instructed the government to bring in officials from ICE and Customs and Border Protection to answer for “particularly concerning” incidents in the area since her initial order was entered.

“Operation Midway Blitz” has significantly escalated immigration enforcement across Chicago during the last month. Protests—including organized demonstrations at a suburban ICE facility and impromptu community gatherings responding to agents’ presence in neighborhoods—have sometimes been met with violence, including tear gas and pepper balls.

The Trump administration claims the demonstrations have gotten so out of hand that the National Guard must be deployed to protect federal agents—an argument that a district court judge and the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit both rejected in a different Chicago federal court case. The administration has appealed on an emergency basis to the US Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs are represented by Loevy & Loevy, First Defense Legal Aid, Protect Democracy Project, Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, Inc., and the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Defendants are represented by the US Department of Justice.

The case is Chicago Headline Club et al v. Noem, N.D. Ill., No. 1:25-cv-12173, modified order entered 10/17/25.

To contact the reporter on this story: Megan Crepeau in Chicago at mcrepeau@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kartikay Mehrotra at kmehrotra@bloombergindustry.com

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