A visibly displeased federal decide on Tuesday ordered Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino to start out coming to court docket each day to element any confrontations his immigration enforcement officers have had with the general public, a transfer that comes as allegations have mounted that brokers are indiscriminately throwing tear fuel in Chicago neighborhoods and utilizing inappropriate drive in opposition to residents and reporters.
Throughout a outstanding hourlong session with Bovino on the witness stand Tuesday, U.S. District Decide Sara Ellis instructed the 30-year border patrol veteran to get his personal body-worn digicam and ship her each use-of-force report — and accompanying bodycam footage — filed since “Operation Midway Blitz” started practically two months in the past.
The decide spoke at one level in somber tones a few fracas within the Previous Irving Park neighborhood over the weekend the place brokers tackled indignant residents and deployed tear fuel on a quiet avenue as kids have been getting ready to march in a Halloween parade to a close-by grammar college.
“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday, and it’s going to take a long time for that to come back — if ever,” Ellis instructed Bovino, who was sitting on the witness stand in his military-green Border Safety uniform and obligation belt. “That’s not how any of us want to live. I know you wouldn’t want to live that way.”
Ellis did a lot of the speaking in the course of the listening to, with Bovino protecting his gaze on the decide and answering principally with a well mannered “Yes, ma’am,” spoken in his slight North Carolina drawl.
Within the few cases the place the decide requested Bovino straight about why his brokers took sure actions, he responded that use-of-force guidelines rely on the precise state of affairs. One incident Ellis requested about concerned brokers allegedly deploying pepper spray at a protester standing on the aspect of the highway as they have been driving away.
Was that an applicable use of drive? the decide requested.
“Well, your honor, I believe that each situation is dependent on the situation,” Bovino replied. “And, you know, I’d like to know more about what happened in those various activities before I would say anything one way or another, because I don’t know all the facts that were present there.”
Ultimately, Ellis mentioned she anticipated Bovino to uphold his obligation to execute the legal guidelines of the nation whereas additionally respecting folks’s constitutional rights.
“People can say they don’t want you here,” the decide mentioned. “They can say they don’t like the way you’re enforcing the law and that they wish you would leave Chicago and take your agents with you.”
When Ellis requested Bovino in the event that they have been “on the same page,” he first mentioned he “gets” what she was saying, prompting the decide to ask it once more.
“Your honor, I — as far as, yeah, we’re on the same page that we will abide by the TRO, the temporary restraining order, and all the accoutrements that are contained therein,” Bovino mentioned lastly.
Whereas she stopped wanting discovering any particular violations had occurred, Ellis ordered Bovino to seem earlier than her in open court docket at 5:45 p.m. every weekday to go over any makes use of of drive from that day. The appearances could be required till at the very least Nov. 5, when Ellis is scheduled to carry a full listening to on a preliminary injunction.
After being excused from the witness stand, Bovino left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse about an hour later surrounded by armed brokers as protesters shouted obscenities at him. Bovino stood on the working board of a Border Patrol pickup truck and made some sweeping army hand gestures to his personnel earlier than getting behind the wheel and heading west on Adams Road.
Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino alerts towards federal brokers after exiting the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on Oct 28, 2025. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
One of many brokers who protected Bovino as he bought into the car was holding what gave the impression to be a canister of tear fuel, which was positioned on the dashboard earlier than the truck pulled away.
The spectacle was set into movement after Ellis ordered Bovino into court docket Tuesday to go over a collection of alleged violations of a brief restraining order she entered in early October proscribing using tear fuel and different controversial techniques utilized by his brokers in metropolis neighborhoods, and requiring brokers to put on physique cameras and “conspicuous” identification on their uniforms when interacting with the general public.
Bovino, who beforehand had served an identical function in a crackdown in Los Angeles, is the general public face of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration-enforcement blitz.
Sporting a high-and-tight haircut and speaking typically in militaristic phrases, Bovino has been featured in slickly produced social media movies put out by the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety purporting to be ridding Chicago’s streets of the “worst of the worst,” undocumented immigrants who’ve a historical past of violent felony habits.
However scant particulars on these arrested have been formally launched, and critics say the overwhelming majority have had no felony backgrounds in any respect.
In the meantime, brokers serving beneath Bovino’s command have escalated their presence in Chicago’s neighborhoods, the place immigration enforcement actions from the East Facet to Lakeview to Previous Irving Park have unfolded in a now-familiar sample. In at the very least seven high-profile cases in latest weeks, irate residents blowing whistles and honking horns have screamed at brokers to depart earlier than arrests have been made and tear fuel deployed.
Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino prepares to drive away in his car after exiting the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago Oct 28, 2025. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Bovino has not solely not shied away from the controversy, he’s positioned himself straight in it. He was current in the course of the huge raid on a South Shore residence constructing earlier this month that drew nationwide headlines. And he reappeared final week on two separate days in Little Village, the guts of Chicago’s Mexican group and an essential financial engine for the town, the place Bovino himself was seen personally throwing tear fuel canisters at a crowd of protesters.
Bovino, in the meantime, has claimed he solely used the fuel after an indignant mob was throwing objects at officers and a rock hit him within the head.
It got here as no shock that Bovino’s look precipitated a media frenzy on the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, the place an overflow courtroom and particular safety measures have been taken to deal with a big crowd of reporters and spectators. Uniformed Chicago cops patrolled exterior the courthouse on bicycles.
Shortly earlier than 10 a.m. Bovino strode into Ellis’ 14th-floor courtroom and took a seat on the protection desk, sipping from a bottle of water. When he was referred to as to the witness stand and put beneath oath, Bovino adjusted his chair and swiveled towards the decide.
Ellis started the listening to by telling Bovino her function “is not to tell you that you can or can’t enforce validly passed laws by Congress … my role is simply to see that in the enforcement of those laws that you … are acting in the manner that is consistent with your obligation under the law.”
The decide mentioned that since she’s certain Bovino wouldn’t merely ignore a court docket order, the one clarification for what she’s been seeing on movies despatched to her by the plaintiffs is that her order is just not clear sufficient. “So I thought it would be a really good idea to go through it so that we are on the same page,” she mentioned.
Ellis then started studying her restraining order on to Bovino, who sat within the witness field in his inexperienced uniform staring again on the decide and nodding.
Half one of many order, Ellis mentioned, primarily ordered Bovino to depart journalists alone.
“If they are doing their job, they have to be left alone,” the decide mentioned.
Half two of the restraining order was that Bovino and his brokers can’t use tear fuel or different munitions on residents who usually are not a hazard to legislation enforcement.
“So kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not elicit an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer,” the decide mentioned, a reference to the confrontation Saturday the place tear fuel was deployed in Previous Irving Park earlier than the youngsters’s Halloween block celebration. “They just don’t.”
The decide additionally mentioned she was “well aware that things can be dynamic.”
“What may not look dangerous in one instance, a minute later could be very dangerous,” the decide mentioned. “And I also know I’m not there. I’m not out in the street … But it is difficult for me to see that the force being used is necessary.”
There was additionally a memorable trade when Ellis started asking Bovino about body-worn cameras, which she had added to her restraining order earlier this month. Bovino mentioned a lot of the 201 Border Patrol brokers within the Chicago space proper now have them, however he wasn’t certain precisely what number of.
“I would like you to do your best to make sure that everybody that is operating under ‘Operation Midway Blitz,’ that they all have body cameras. OK?” Ellis requested.
“Yes ma’am,” Bovino replied.
Ellis then requested Bovino: “Do you have a body cam?”
“I do not, no ma’am,” Bovino mentioned. “I have not yet received a body worn camera nor the training.”
“OK, so you are in charge of this operation and you probably have an in with (DHS) Secretary Noem?” Ellis requested considerably sarcastically.
“I’ve talked to her from time to time, ma’am,” Bovino mentioned.
“I suspect that if you ask for a body camera you could probably get one without having to pull strings?” Ellis requested. After Bovino agreed that was a good assertion, Ellis mentioned, “So how about by Friday you get a camera?”
“We can get a camera (for me) by Friday — and the training,” he agreed.
Ellis principally stayed away from confronting Bovino about particular alleged violations. Usually, nonetheless, she mentioned she’d reviewed many movies despatched by the plaintiffs and posted within the media and it was “difficult for me to see that the force being used was necessary to stop an immediate and serious threat of physical harm.”
Ellis additionally didn’t ask Bovino straight concerning the video exhibiting him lobbing a tear fuel canister towards demonstrators in Little Village final week. However she repeated to Bovino that warnings should be given earlier than such motion will be taken, and so they should be express about what drive goes for use if folks don’t adjust to lawful orders.
Late Monday, the plaintiffs within the go well with introduced by the Chicago Headline Membership and others requested Ellis to bar immigration brokers from utilizing tear fuel altogether pending the end result of an injunction listening to subsequent month.
Ellis delay a choice on that subject on Tuesday, saying she’d be shocked if, after speaking to Bovino straight, there could be any extra points.
“I don’t know that we are going to see a whole lot of tear gas being deployed over the next week,” the decide mentioned.
Ellis has additionally ordered Bovino to take a seat for a five-hour sworn deposition later this week, however that interview won’t be made public because of a protecting order.
In his six weeks on the bottom in Chicago as a part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” Bovino has claimed 1000’s of immigration-related arrests, a part of a touted “mission” to make the streets safer for law-abiding residents.
Over the weekend, a submitting by the plaintiffs within the case earlier than Ellis accused him of mendacity about being struck within the head by a rock within the Little Village operation the place he was seen throwing tear fuel, saying the confrontation was being filmed from a number of angles and nothing had surfaced that backs up that assertion.
“In that same interview discussed above, Defendant Bovino also stated, ‘I take my orders from the executive branch,’ suggesting disdain for this Court’s authority to enjoin his unlawful conduct,” the plaintiffs’ submitting said.
Throughout Tuesday’s listening to, Ellis had probably the most to say concerning the Previous Irving Park incident, describing it as a “quiet” neighborhood and noting that kids have been excited to be going to a Halloween occasion the place “all the rules go out the window” and so they can eat as a lot sweet as they need.
The confrontation within the 3700 block of Kildare Avenue, the place brokers chased a day laborer down the road, prompted a chaotic scene that “ruined what should have been an ordinary Saturday morning,” in keeping with a court docket submitting Monday by the plaintiffs.
The submitting said that as neighbors got here out to yell on the officers — together with some nonetheless of their pajamas and one lady along with her moist hair wrapped in a towel — the brokers “unleashed violence,” tackling a person who was round 70 years previous and two others after which deploying tear fuel as they left the scene.
The actions violated Ellis’ restraining order in a number of methods, the submitting alleged, together with by deploying chemical munitions with out the required verbal warnings. Among the brokers additionally had no figuring out info on their uniforms and used “unnecessary force” in tackling residents who posed no bodily risk, the submitting said.
In a press release over the weekend, the company mentioned Border Patrol brokers have been “surrounded and boxed in by a group of agitators” and that a number of lawful instructions and verbal warnings have been ignored.
“During the operation, two U.S. citizens were arrested for assaulting and impeding a federal officer,” the assertion learn. “To safely clear the area after multiple warnings and the crowd continuing to advance on them, Border Patrol had to deploy crowd control measures.”
No assault costs had been filed in opposition to anybody arrested as of Monday. The operation additionally resulted within the arrest of the day laborer, who DHS mentioned was within the nation illegally and has a earlier arrest for assault.
After Bovino left the courtroom Tuesday, Ellis had a stern warning about any deliberate immigration enforcement actions on Halloween evening itself, which is Friday, telling attorneys for the Justice Division that brokers shouldn’t be out tear-gassing anybody “where kids are present.”
“I expect everybody to act reasonably,” the decide mentioned. “I’m not telling the agency how to operate … (but) know that it is a day where people are going to be out minding their own business.”
Chicago Tribune’s Rebecca Johnson contributed.
