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At least two high school students were detained during this period Intensified clashes between protesters and federal agents in ChicagoWhere President Donald Trump has deployed officers to break up demonstrations Against his anti-immigration agenda.
The students were arrested Thursday after “assaulting” and “assaulting” officers at the scene, according to protesters and Chicago officials. He said one student was released at the scene and the other student was released hours later.
“This is not even about immigration,” Alderman Sigcho-Lopez said during a news conference outside Benito Juarez High School on Thursday. “It’s about suppressing dissent.”
Streets of Little Village neighborhood flooded Immigration and Customs Enforcement And Border Patrol agents joined protesters for the second day in a row Thursday demanding officers be stopped from targeting residents and businesses without warrants.
“These were kids walking to school. They witnessed a horrific scene when you see masked people approaching your neighbors,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “Unfortunately they were detained. One had blood on his face.”
Benito Juarez teacher and Chicago Teachers Union member Liz Winfield said she noticed one of her students was missing while taking attendance.
He said, “I marked a junior student absent, not because the student was sick or his bus was late. It was because ICE pulled him over on his way to school.”
“I am extremely angry and disappointed that these students have to add this worry to their school day,” she said. “They should have to worry about acceptance into college or whether they’re going to get a date to the school dance. This is disrespectful and unacceptable.”
Federal agents detained at least seven people Wednesday in Little Village and suburban Cicero. Two staff members of Alderman Michael Rodriguez were arrested and released the next morning, according to his office.
Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, who is leading the operation in Chicago, was captured on video Thursday throwing tear gas into a crowd in Little Village, which lawyers argue Riots violate court orders against indiscriminate use of weapons during protests.
A group of protesters including lawyers, journalists and religious leaders attending the demonstration warned a federal judge that Bovino was “simply ignoring your order.”
He called on Judge Sarah Ellis to “investigate this incident and order any relief the court deems appropriate”, given the “seriousness of the apparent violations”.
in a statement to Independent, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin accused agents of firing fireworks into a crowd of 75 to 100 people during an enforcement operation on Thursday.
According to McLaughlin, a Border Patrol van carrying the detainees was “attacked” by a crowd that “became more hostile and violent, moving toward the agents and began throwing rocks and other objects at the agents, one of whom struck Chief Greg Bovino in the head.”
He said agents repeated “numerous warnings” for protesters to leave before firing tear gas at them.
“The use of chemical weapons was in full accordance with CBP policy and was necessary to ensure the safety of both law enforcement and the public,” McLaughlin said.
Sigcho-Lopez called the officers’ actions “illegal”.
“What did they detain him on? There are no charges,” he said. “We want to understand why he was detained in the first place.”
Thursday’s volatile scenes and arrests came as Chicago school board members called on the city’s public school system to hold virtual classes to avoid the same scenario. Chicago Public Schools said it could not order those changes without an emergency declaration from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
Federal agents – who are historically Have been banned from enforcement action in sensitive areas like schools – Raids and arrests are intensifying in the Chicago area, which has emerged as a flashpoint for opposition to the president’s mass deportation agenda.
A lawsuit accuses federal agents there of “indiscriminately” throwing flash grenades and tear gas against protesters and firing guns loaded with chemical irritants and rubber bullets.
Protesters and journalists have suffered “serious injuries” and “some are being randomly selected for arrest” and detained inside an ICE facility, where they are “detained in secret for hours”. According to the complaint.
Trump has deployed hundreds of National Guard members to the state, which a federal judge has temporarily blocked as a multi-state legal challenge against the administration’s federal troops unfolds.
“I’m absolutely mad,” Illinois state Sen. Selina Villanueva said Thursday. “What I saw today is a continuation of the fascism that Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to spread throughout our country.”