Border Patrol Disrupts Children's Halloween Parade As Clashes Continue: Reports

CHICAGO — Conflict roiled over the weekend across the Chicago area, from a children’s Halloween parade in the city to a suburban elementary school, as federal agents and members of the public continued to clash amid ongoing immigration activity, according to reports.

Border Patrol agents conducting a raid Saturday in the Old Irving Park neighborhood interrupted the holiday parade and deployed tear gas without warning, ABC News reported, citing people in the neighborhood and adding that the parade was moved to a nearby school.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News in a statement that “crowd control measures” were necessary due to the hostility the agents met while undertaking an operation to arrest a person from Mexico previously arrested on suspicion of assault. Two U.S. citizens were also arrested during the operation on suspicion of assaulting and impeding an officer, McLaughlin told ABC News.

Also Saturday, a confrontation outside Allen Elementary School in Aurora led to two U.S. citizens being detained by federal agents, with both telling WLS they were injured to varying degrees. One was cited on suspicion of obstructing an arrest, WLS reported. The homeland security department did not respond to WLS about the incident.

Federal agents were seen Sunday in the parking lot of a strip mall in the 300 block of West Lake Street in Addison, breaking a vehicle window and detaining at least one person, according to FOX 32 Chicago, which reported a crowd gathered in the area.

A Palatine police officer helped federal agents detain a person outside a shopping plaza Monday in the 1100 block of East Dundee Road in another incident that drew a crowd, WLS reported.

On Friday in Chicago’s Lake View East neighborhood, the night manager of Laugh Factory was detained after he and his mother tried to intervene in immigration activity, according to NBC Chicago, which reported that Border Patrol said the man tried to shut a vehicle door on an agent’s leg.

Since the federal enforcement operation started last month, there have been over 2,800 apprehensions, ABC News reported.