Hmmmm… So this is the land of the free!
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Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown.
The clash began on Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s far South Side, witnesses said. An S.U.V. driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby.
After the crash, dozens of additional immigration agents in masks arrived, and residents emerged from their houses, gathering on streets and sidewalks, throwing objects at agents and shouting, “ICE go home!”
As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the police department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the federal agents were conducting an immigration enforcement operation when two people tried to flee and hit the agents’ vehicle.
“This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers,” the D.H.S. said in a statement. The statement said that federal agents used “crowd control measures” after a group of people gathered and turned hostile.
It was one of many turbulent episodes to erupt in Chicago in recent days. Federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol have roamed the city and suburbs, making arrests, often pulling up to people walking along sidewalks, stopping them, and questioning them.
The agents repeatedly have been observed releasing smoke bombs, tear gas, and pepper balls to disperse residents who gather or capture videos on cellphones, including when the agents were making arrests in densely populated neighborhoods. Chicago police officers, who have been called to the scenes of some clashes, have been exposed to tear gas from federal agents twice in the last two weeks.
As the intensity of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has risen, residents of Chicago are increasingly pushing back with fury.
In the last several weeks, Chicagoans have formed volunteer groups to monitor their neighborhoods for federal immigration agents, posting alerts on Facebook and in Signal group chats when agents are seen.
If agents are spotted on the street, motorists lean on their horns as a warning and sometimes give chase. Around the city last weekend, pairs of volunteers were seen with orange whistles around their necks, blowing the whistles at the first sight of immigration agents.
One Chicago resident, Chris Molitor, stationed himself on a street corner on the North Side on Tuesday, holding a sign denouncing President Trump and wearing a shirt critical of ICE.
“We’re seeing videos of people being abused,” said Mr. Molitor, 64, who works in hospitality, nodding in the direction of a local taqueria whose owners were questioned by ICE. “There’s got to be a pushback of some kind.”
Last month, Andre Vasquez, a City Council member who is chairman of Chicago’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, sponsored a “community defense workshop” to inform residents of their rights and help them organize politically.
Smoke filled the air after federal agents used tear gas during a clash with community members on the far South Side.
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