Footage from nearly four dozen body cameras worn by immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz was released to the public on Wednesday, capturing in shaky, first-person style the abject chaos on the streets as residents and protesters were tear-gassed, hit with pepper balls and arrested during protests of immigration enforcement actions.
The group of videos made public through the Loevy & Loevy law firm includes footage from agents who responded to controversial arrest operations in the Little Village and Irving Park neighborhoods.
The videos show agents lobbing flash grenades at protesters outside the Broadview immigration detention center and interrogating Chicago residents on city sidewalks.
Federal agents in tactical gear fire pepper spray balls and lob flash grenades to clear protesters from the street outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview on Sept. 19, 2025. (Loevy & Loevy)
In one clip, Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino tells agents to force an angry crowd back from a perimeter fence outside the Broadview immigration detention center and arrest anyone who doesn’t comply.
Another depicts agents in a lengthy high-speed vehicle pursuit through Chicago’s East Side neighborhood that ended in a crash and one agent chasing the vehicle’s suspected passenger into a nearby Walgreens.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered the 43 videos released after she relied heavily on them in issuing a preliminary injunction last week restricting the use of tear gas and other chemical munitions by agents on the public and media.
In her 233-page opinion, Ellis wrote that, over and over, body-worn camera footage from the agents undermined what was eventually put in their use-of-force reports, rendering their statements unreliable.
The reports also misidentified “neighborhood moms and dads, Chicago Bears fans, people dressed in Halloween costumes, and the lawyer who lives on the block” as professional agitators, Ellis wrote, while the body cameras at times captured the agents’ apparent glee in deploying tear gas and other munitions on residential streets.
“Just start throwing s—,” one agent told another during an incident on the East Side in October, according to Ellis’ report.
The judge also revealed for the first time that one body-worn camera video captured an immigration agent using the AI tool ChatGPT to “compile a narrative for a report based on a brief sentence about an encounter and several images.”
“To the extent that agents use ChatGPT to create their use of force reports, this further undermines their credibility and may explain the inaccuracy of these reports when viewed in light of the BWC footage,” Ellis wrote.
The judge’s ruling came after media groups sued the Department of Homeland Security over the treatment of protesters and reporters. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay, calling the ruling “overbroad” and said it improperly targets virtually the entire executive branch, including President Donald Trump.
The 7th Circuit has issued an expedited appeal schedule.
Broadview clashes
Several of the body-worn camera clips show agents clashing with protesters in Broadview.
A roughly 12-minute video from Sept. 19 shows at least two dozen agents in tactical gear — camouflage, helmets, gas masks — stepping out of the suburban detention center’s fenced parking lot to clear protesters from the street.
Agents unleash a barrage of pepper spray balls and lob flash grenades, filling the night sky with plumes of white smoke.
“Stay on the line, shoulder to shoulder,” the agent wearing the camera says as he repeatedly fumbles with the pin of a ball-shaped grenade in his right hand, the word “stinger” printed on the side, which he eventually throws into the street. “Stay in line. Stay in line. Good job.”
A man with a megaphone shouts at the agents: “You guys are pathetic. What are you doing?”
At one point, the camera catches a glimpse of two agents who appear to be carrying a person toward the detention center.
“Leave that gate open, brother,” the agent says. “They got one.”
Two agents yell at a man standing at the fence across from the building to move.
“I can’t see,” he responds, holding his face.
The man’s eyes are closed, hands raised, as the agent wearing the camera approaches.
“I just need to leave,” the man tells the agent.
“Do not cause any violence. Do not come back. You understand?” the agent responds. “You come back, you will be arrested.”
Agents eventually withdraw to the fenced lot, where they’re told to check their gear and note any uses of nonlethal force.
A week later, on Sept. 27, a video clip shows agents donning gas masks to a soundtrack of reggaeton playing from someone in the crowd of protesters.
Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, not pictured, tells a group of agents to force an angry crowd back from a perimeter fence outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview during a Sept. 27, 2025, protest. “I think if we push this whole (expletive) block back, that ought to teach ’em a lesson,” Bovino says on an agent’s body-worn camera recording. “And if it doesn’t, we arrest.” (Loevy & Loevy)
“Great. Here we go,” an agent says with a chuckle. “They’re gonna gas them.”
“I didn’t bring my gas mask,” another one says, adding that he didn’t expect to be going to a protest.
“I grabbed one today, but there were no more filters left, so doesn’t really help me any,” the first agent says.
The agent who didn’t bring a mask starts putting on a pair of gloves.
Someone in the group comments, “We’re going to do this the fun way,” eliciting a laugh from the agent filming with the body camera.
Later in the same footage, Bovino is heard saying off-camera: “This might be a good one, guys. So stay alert. Stay alert for weapons.”
The camera captures agents tussling with one man who is seen running toward them. They take him to the ground and zip-tie his hands behind his back.
“Can I lift my head so I can breathe?” he asks. “I’m asking. Hey, lift my head so I can breathe.”
One of the agents briefly pulls him up by his shoulders as another says, “In a second.”
In a separate video clip recorded later that night, agents rush to the sidewalk beyond a controversial security fence the agency erected, only to tear it down last month following a court order.
Warning: This video contains graphic content.
Agents appear to surround one person on the grass, while another shoves a man to the ground.
“What the (expletive)? I’m a reporter, you piece of (expletive),” the man says.
“We told you to get back,” an agent replies.
The man says he tried to get back.
“You did this to yourself,” the agent says, calling the man a slur used against people with mental disabilities.
“I didn’t do anything,” the man pleads, a cellphone clasped in his hands as agents attempt to cuff him.
Agents lift the man to his feet. A lanyard — similar to the press badges reporters wear — hangs around his neck.
Eventually, the agents slowly back toward the perimeter fence as protesters return to the street.
A man who is heard identifying himself as a reporter, left, is shoved to the ground and detained by federal agents during a Sept. 27, 2025, protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview. “We told you to get back,” an agent tells the man, who replies, “I tried.” (Loevy & Loevy)
One woman is heard taunting the agents: “Nice costume, did you order that on Temu?” And later: “I want to get one just like it for Halloween.”
Inside the 8-foot-high security fence, Bovino is seen briefing the agents.
“How you boys doing? You up?” he asks. “All right, guys, you know what? … I think this is getting dangerous for this facility. I think they’re too close. What do you guys think about pushing this whole crowd all the way back to that stop sign?”
An agent suggests they could keep protesters back from the fence for an hour with an “arrest team” behind them, “in case we get agitators throwing rocks or whatever.” They also agree to establish a “limit line.”
“Somebody even steps across it, they get it,” Bovino says. “It’s all about arresting people. I think if we push this whole (expletive) block back, that ought to teach ’em a lesson. And if it doesn’t, we arrest.”
Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino tells agents to force an angry crowd back from a perimeter fence outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview during a Sept. 27, 2025, protest. (Loevy & Loevy)
Two days later, the body-camera footage shows agents tear-gassing people in Broadview. They shout “move back” at protesters who are standing on a sidewalk and not blocking any entrance.
“Do you want to be arrested?” one agent asks.
“Arrest me for what?” one man responds.
With the protesters pushed back down the block, the agents and demonstrators spent the next several minutes staring at each other. A woman can be heard asking if anyone needs a medic, while one man asks the agents if they feel good about their jobs.
The protesters make no moves toward the agents and some are talking about going home, when suddenly a projectile is fired at the crowd.
“What are you shooting for?” a protester shouts.
Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef gets on a megaphone and asks the agents if he can cross their line to get his car.
“Please, sir,” he said. “You made your point. I want to leave.”
An agent approaches the rabbi and asks him to speak to the crowd.
The rabbi speaks to the agents and protesters, telling both sides it’s time to end the protest so people can leave without anyone being injured or arrested.
“This is not the way it should be,” Ben Yosef said. “We’re Americans. We don’t hurt people.”
An agent appears to show the rabbi a path out, but as Ben Yosef turns the sound of projectiles can be heard and he throws his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
He is eventually allowed to cross the street and leave.
Street arrests and a ChatGPT report
An Oct. 3 video clip captures an agent typing something into ChatGPT on his phone while riding in the passenger seat of a vehicle.
The footage shows the time on his phone, 8:48 a.m., and one of the messages he sends to the AI Chatbot: “Long format like yesterday’s.”
ChatGPT’s response reads:
“Got it. Here’s the long-format narrative written in line with your Operation At Large / Midway Blitz go-by, incorporating all the identifiers from the documents you provided:”
The AI bot’s response notes the hour, 0840, and says the agent “with over six years of experience and having conducted thousands of interviews and apprehensions of illegal aliens, was operating in the area of 2803 S Cicero Ave, Cicero, IL, 60804. I was wearing full … uniform with visible identifiers … an unmarked government vehicle.”
A few words are hidden by the way the agent holds the phone with his right hand.
“During surveillance in the area, I observed a male subject loitering while seated in a vehicle. Based on his behavior, I approached and initiated a consensual encounter. The—”
The text goes on, but he doesn’t scroll. The agent opens his notifications to three missed messages from “Allmightywhity” and a missed message from “parsons520” in another app. He presses a record button and holds the phone up toward his face three times. There is no audio accompanying the video up to this point.
After passing a McDonald’s, driving through a parking lot, the agents inside the car discuss a man they see outside who is injured.
“Do not take custody of the injured guy. Do not,” one of them says. “Pull closer, do not drop us off, please,” as they approach a stop sign. “Keep going closer.”
Something happening outside appears to make them change their plans, as the driver is given directions: “Turn right, and go back into the parking lot.”
“Don’t get involved?” one asks.
“Negative,” another responds.
The car, driving on 29 Street, passes a sign for Cicero Market Place at 2601 S. Cicero Ave., where the McDonald’s is located, as well as a Sam’s Club and a Home Depot. The latter’s address is 2803 S. Cicero Ave. — the same in the agent’s messages with ChatGPT. It is 8:50 a.m.
A separate Oct. 3 video begins with agents driving in a car, before suddenly pulling over to speak with two men walking down the street. The younger man shields the older man.
“De donde eres?” the agent asks. Where are you from?
The younger man, who has placed his body between the older man and his agent, says he’s a U.S. citizen. The agents ask if they can speak with the older man, but the younger man refuses.
“Please,” the younger man says. “He has a disabled child.”
“That’s not my problem,” the agent answers.
The agents threaten to arrest the younger man, who appears terrified and is shaking.
“Relax, relax,” the older man tells him in English.
The older man sighs and seems to accept the situation, when the agents grab the younger man and tackle him to the ground. They handcuff the younger man, as the older man pleads with them. “Please, please,” he can be heard saying to the agents.
An agent then tackles the older man, as an onlooker shouts at them. Both men are arrested and put in the back of an SUV.
The younger man tries to say something once in the car.
“Quiet!” the agent screams. “You had your chance to be peaceful.”
An agent directs the driver to head to Little Village and find a place to park so the agents can make some phone calls.
In an Oct. 23 video clip, a young woman approaches a car carrying at least three agents. Horns honk loudly in the background.
“Can I help you with something?” an agent asks her from the backseat.
The woman holds up a phone, presumably recording, telling the agents to leave. Outside, it’s a sunny day in what appears to be a residential neighborhood.
The agent driving the car says, punctuating his words with his finger pointed at her: “If you guys keep following us, we’re gonna arrest you.” He repeats it. “You’ve been warned.”
The agent wearing the body camera, sitting in the back seat, turns to look at one of the cars behind them through the rear window.
“Get back in the car with your kids,” he tells the woman.
“She’s got kids in the car?” a third agent asks.
“Yes, two toddlers, crawling around the back seat.” He shifts the camera and moves it behind a covering on one of the side windows. “I’m recording her with my bodycam.”
Shortly after, the woman walks away.
East Side chase and crash
A particularly harrowing video clip from Oct. 14 shows agents in a vehicle speeding along mostly residential streets in Chicago’s East Side neighborhood. The agents are chasing a red Ford Escape. One agent is heard saying over his radio that someone in the car “hit two agents and our vehicle as well.”
Tires screech at every turn. The engine revs. An occasional car horn or whistle is heard as the agents’ SUV speeds down streets and alleys, bouncing over speed bumps. Their unmarked SUV is not equipped with lights or sirens.
Border Patrol agents run into a Walgreens to arrest a person accused of being in a vehicle that struck agents after a lengthy high-speed vehicle chase through Chicago’s East Side neighborhood on Oct. 14, 2025. (Loevy & Loevy)
Sitting in the front passenger seat, the agent whose body camera recorded the footage retrieves a spike strip and encourages his colleague to get in front of the Escape so he can throw the strip out the window.
The high-speed chase continues for 18 minutes. Its conclusion comes, first, when the agents’ SUV hits a curb while making a sharp turn. A flapping sound suggests a flat tire.
Suddenly, there is a loud screech and a crash, its force strong enough for airbags to deploy inside the agents’ vehicle. The agent in the front passenger seat hurries out of the car and, gun drawn, runs after one of the Escape’s occupants. His partner is seen heading in a different direction after another occupant.
The agent runs to a Walgreens, where he tells a stunned-looking employee at the front door: “He just assaulted an agent.”
Shoppers yell at the agent. One man bellows: “What are you Nazi (expletives) doing in our neighborhood?”
A Border Patrol agent runs through a Walgreens with his gun drawn to arrest a person accused of being in a vehicle that struck agents after a lengthy high-speed vehicle chase through Chicago’s East Side neighborhood on Oct. 14, 2025. (Loevy & Loevy)
The agent raises his handgun and orders them to get back. He looks behind a store counter, where four people duck for cover. One of the four is the person he says he was chasing. He slaps handcuffs on the person.
“Call the police,” a woman in the store pleads.
“We are the police!” the agent yells back. “We are here fighting for your crimes!”
The agent leads the person in handcuffs from the store. He and his fellow agents return to the crash site. A growing crowd has gathered, shouting for agents to leave.
A Border Patrol agent runs into a Walgreens to arrest a person accused of being in a vehicle that struck agents after a lengthy high-speed vehicle chase through Chicago’s East Side neighborhood on Oct. 14, 2025. (Loevy & Loevy)
Separate footage shows the crowd and agents gathered near the damaged vehicles near 105th Street and Avenue N.
“CPD’s going to do some sort of accident thing?” an agent asks.
“They haven’t said anything,” another agent responds.
“’Cause this is going to get spicy real quick,” the first agent says.
For more than an hour, a large group of immigration agents remained on scene as an angry neighborhood crowd grows, yelling insults and filming the fracas. At one point, an agent circles around and reminds his colleagues to turn on their body cameras.
Later, the video shows agents throwing tear gas, causing plumes of smoke to rise above the street where residents gathered and local law enforcement had responded.
“Let’s go!” agents shout, seeking to clear out the area as smoke from the gas still lingered.
“Good times,” one agent says as he gets in his vehicle to leave.
