Politics

Illinois Accountability Commission Should Probe Senior Trump Administration Officials, Pritzker Says

A state commission formed to document abuses during a series of increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement raids across Chicago and the suburbs should probe the conduct of senior Trump administration aides, Gov. JB Pritzker said late Thursday.

The Illinois Accountability Commission should “review and document available information related to the statements, policy decisions and roles of the following administration individuals that have led to the escalation of aggressive enforcement tactics during the course of Operation Midway Blitz,” the governor’s office announced in a statement.

Pritzker said the commission should focus its probe on:

• Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser
• Border czar Tom Homan
• Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem
• Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino
• Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security
• Corey Lewandowski, Department of Homeland Security
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons
• and Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott.

“For too long, Gregory Bovino and his rogue federal agents have terrorized communities in Illinois and across the country, violated our people’s constitutional rights and unleashed violence at every turn,” Pritzker said. “Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem and Donald Trump’s other lackeys should find lawyers because they must still be held responsible for the killings and the damage they’ve done to our country.”

The commission will consider Pritzker’s request at its meeting set for Friday morning, former U.S. District Court Judge Rubén Castillo said.

“I believe this is in line with the work and the charge of the commission to ensure we bring to light all of the actions that harmed people in Illinois,” said Castillo, the chair of the commission. “My three decades of legal experience has always shown that the statements and related actions of parties show motive and intent. This situation is no different.”

Pritzker singled out Bovino, who was apparently demoted after federal agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Saturday in Minneapolis. Their deaths heightened tensions over the aggressive immigration raids launched by Trump to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.

The statement from the governor’s office did not detail how state officials would hold the federal officials accountable. In most cases, state and local law enforcement officials are prohibited from charging federal officials for reasonable conduct that occurred during the course of their official duties.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said during a speech Wednesday that he was contemplating “measures we hadn’t previously considered” in order to hold federal agents accountable for misconduct during the deportation push. Johnson has not detailed those proposals.

The statement from the governor’s office included more than a dozen incidents involving Bovino characterized as “misconduct.”

Bovino, and the agents under his command, falsely depicted ordinary Chicagoans as professional agitators determined to mount a violent resistance, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis ruled in November.

In her 233-page ruling, Ellis singled out the conduct of Bovino, whose brash social-media presence and frequent appearances in the media defined the federal government’s aggressive immigration raids until Good and Pretti’s deaths.

During an October deposition, given under oath, Bovino was “evasive” during his three days of sworn testimony with plaintiffs’ attorneys, “either providing ‘cute’ responses” or “outright lying,” Ellis wrote.

Bovino fired at least two canisters of tear gas at a crowd in Little Village on Oct. 23 during a confrontation sparked by agents’ decision to detain a man at a bus stop near 26th and Whipple streets, prompting a crowd of angry residents to flock to the scene.

Little Village, also called La Villita, is the heart of Chicago’s Mexican American community, and is home to the second largest shopping district in the city, behind North Michigan Avenue.

While Bovino and McLaughlin said federal agents fired tear gas at the crowd because protesters used fireworks in an attempt to injure federal agents, Ellis said the only explosive was actually a flash-bang grenade fired by federal agents.

“Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied about whether a rock hit him before he deployed tear gas in Little Village,” Ellis said from the bench on Nov. 6.

Bovino testified he saw people he believed to be members of the Latin Kings gang unloading weapons from a car in Little Village and others on rooftops and in the crowd.

Bovino said he reached that conclusion because they were wearing maroon hoodies and that “would signify a potential assailant or street gang member that was making their way to the location that I was present,” according to Ellis’ opinion.

However, maroon is not a color used to signal membership in the Latin Kings, Ellis wrote.

Footage captured by agents’ body-worn cameras showed just a few people wearing maroon clothing, including Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward).

The testimony about “individuals in maroon hoodies being associated with the Latin Kings and threats strains credulity,” the judge said.

In fact, Bovino was not hit by a rock before lobbing a tear gas canister, without warning, at the crowd, Ellis said. In addition, Bovino fired a second canister at the crowd as people fled the area and posed no threat to anyone, Ellis said.

Ellis pointedly noted that several incidents occurred after she ordered agents to issue two warnings before deploying tear gas or other “less lethal” crowd control measures and only when there was a clear threat posed by protesters.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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