The Club PUBlication 11/10/2025

Chicago judge curbs agents’ use of force, says they lied about threats
By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and SOPHIA TAREEN
​The Associated Press
CHICAGO

​A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday issued an extensive injunction restricting federal agents' use of force, saying Thursday that a top Border Patrol official leading an immigration crackdown repeatedly lied about threats posed by protesters and reporters.

The preliminary injunction came in response to a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who allege federal agents have used excessive force during the operation that has netted more than 3,000 arrests and led to heated clashes across the nation's third-largest city and its many suburbs.

"I see little reason for the use of force that the federal agents are currently using," said U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis. "I don't find defendants' version of events credible."

The order restricts agents from using certain riot control weapons, such as tear gas and pepper balls, "unless such force is objectively necessary" to prevent "an immediate threat." It also bars agents from using physical force, including shoving protesters and journalists to the ground, and it says agents must give two warnings before using riot control weapons.

A Department of Homeland Security official said in a statement that DHS plans to appeal the ruling, calling it "an extreme act by an activist judge that risks the lives and livelihoods of law enforcement officers."

The Chicago area crackdown, part of the Trump administration's growing intervention in Democratic strongholds, has triggered a litany of court action, including forcing improvements at a federal immigration facility activists say is a de facto detention center and blocking a National Guard deployment.

Thursday's ruling largely mirrors an earlier o rder that required agents to wear badges and banned the use of certain riot-control techniques, such as tear gas, against peaceful protesters and journalists. After repeatedly chastising federal officials for not following her previous orders, she added a requirement for body cameras.

In delivering the injunction, Ellis quoted presidents including George Washington and a famous poem about Chicago by Carl Sandburg. She described protesters and advocates facing tear gas, having guns pointed at them and being thrown to the ground, saying "that would cause a reasonable person to think twice about exercising their fundamental rights."

A day earlier, attorneys for both sides repeatedly clashed in court over accounts of several tense incidents since the immigration crackdown began in September. Several involved Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol commander who has led the crackdown, including an incident where he threw a canister of gas a crowd after alleging he was hit by a rock.
Ellis said Bovino walked back the claim about the rock after video evidence didn't show it to be true. "Bovino admitted that he lied," she said.

Bovino, who led a similar operation in Los Angeles, has been forced to sit for hours of closed-door depositions related to growing legal challenges stemming from "Operation Midway Blitz." Clips of the private interviews, where Bovino is dressed in his green Border Patrol uniform and is at times evasive, were played in court, along with body camera footage.
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Bovino has repeatedly defended agents' use of force, while also dodging questions about Border Patrol agents' tactics. He oversees nearly 230 agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that have been in the Chicago area.