Saying immigration agents have acted more like an occupying military force than law enforcement, lawyers for the state of Illinois and Chicago sued the Trump administration in federal court Monday seeking to bar agents from using tear gas without sufficient warning, making warrantless arrests, and randomly stopping people to question them about their citizenship.

The 103-page lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court also seeks to ban agents from immigration enforcement operations from “sensitive” areas such as schools, courthouses and hospitals, and limit the use of “biometric” scanning of fingerprints and other personal information.

“Border Patrol agents and ICE officers have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a news release announcing the lawsuit. “They randomly, and often violently, question residents. Without warrants or probable cause, they brutally detain citizens and non-citizens alike. They use tear gas and other chemical weapons against bystanders, injuring dozens, including children, the elderly and local police officers.”

This lawsuit is one of around 50 Raoul has signed onto against Trump since the president’s second term began in January 2025.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker similarly spoke out against ICE and CBP’s tactics in Chicago and said in a post on X that the state was “standing up for our people.”

The suit, which comes less than a week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, borrows heavily from two pending cases in the same courthouse, one dealing with use-of-force tactics on protesters and media, and the other a consent decree involving so-called warrantless arrests.

In fact, immediately after filing Monday’s lawsuit, plaintiffs’ attorneys had moved to have it heard by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, who issued a landmark preliminary injunction in November limiting the use of tear gas and requiring agents to wear body cameras and identification when dealing with the public.

Ellis’ injunction was later stayed by the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, and the plaintiffs in that case have moved to dismiss the suit.

Still, Ellis is “thoroughly familiar” with the many of the facts alleged in the new complaint. which also has “overlapping legal issues concerning the same set of facts,” wrote Vikas Didwania, an attorney for the state and former federal prosecutor.

But it appeared that effort was unsuccessful, as the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis on Monday afternoon.

Among those named as defendants in the suit was U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirsti Noem, ICE Director Todd Lyons, and Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, who has became the public face of Midway Blitz and other similar operations around the country.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an email statement that the department’s agents have acted lawfully and Illinois can not legally interfere with the federal government’s deportation efforts.

“It really is astounding that the Left can miraculously rediscover the Tenth Amendment when they don’t want federal law enforcement officers to enforce federal law — which is a clear federal responsibility under Article I, Article II and the Supremacy Clause — and then go right back to federalizing every state responsibility possible when they get back in power,” McLaughlin said in the statement.

“This is a baseless lawsuit, and we look forward to proving that in court,” she continued.

The lawsuit also alleges ICE agents violated state law by routinely concealing and swapping out license plates.

It’s not the first time Illinois has taken offense to ICE agents swapping out their car license plates. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias sent a cease-and-desist letter to DHS demanding the agency stop swapping, concealing and tampering with car license plates.

In a social media video from October, an ICE agent told a bystander, who was recording the agent’s car license plate, that “You can record all you want. We change the plates out every day.”

The lawsuit describes a litany of now-infamous tactics used by immigration agents since Operation Midway Blitz began in early September.

It also describes familiar and controversial incidents that have unfolded over the past four months, including the killing of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez in Franklin Park in September, the militarized raid of an apartment building in South Shore later that month, and the shooting of Marimar Martinez by a Border Patrol agent in Brighton Park on Oct. 4 that left her with five bullet wounds.

Agents have also “arrested hundreds without warrants, randomly questioned hundreds more, and unleashed chemical weapons outside schools and in residential communities,” the plaintiffs said in a news release.

“The Trump administration has repeatedly violated the law and undermined public trust,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. “These actions weren’t just unlawful; they were cruel, needlessly inflicting fear and harm on our communities.”

Alexakis, meanwhile, had not set an initial hearing in the case as of Monday. She recently presided over the high-profile criminal case against Martinez, who was charged with assault of a federal agent after she was shot. Those charges were eventually dropped by the U.S. attorney’s office.

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