A federal choose has ordered the pinnacle of the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement operations in Chicago to look in her courtroom Tuesday morning, apparently for direct questioning from the bench.
U.S. District Decide Sara Ellis, who’s overseeing a lawsuit filed by a number of information organizations alleging improper use of power by ICE and Border Patrol brokers towards Chicago journalists, issued the order Friday.
The order got here simply hours after federal immigration officers surrounded a person engaged on a constructing rehab undertaking close to Belmont and Broadway in Lakeview. Brokers later deployed tear gasoline on a residential road after residents started yelling at and filming them.
On Thursday, attorneys for the plaintiffs filed a movement claiming Border Patrol Commander-at-Massive Gregory Bovino unnecessarily threw a tear gasoline canister right into a crowd in Little Village with out warning. A federal spokesperson claimed Bovino had been struck within the head by a projectile thrown by a protester.
Tossing gasoline towards folks with out provocation would seemingly violate a short lived restraining order Ellis signed earlier this month requiring immigration officers to present protesters truthful warning to disperse earlier than deploying chemical brokers.
The order additionally restricts different techniques, together with “utilizing power, similar to pulling or shoving an individual to the bottom, tackling, or body-slamming a person who poses no fast risk of bodily hurt to others.”
Earlier within the week, Ellis questioned two high-ranking federal officers in regards to the authorities’s native immigration enforcement operations and initially allowed the plaintiffs’ attorneys to depose Bovino for 2 hours. She prolonged that restrict to 5 hours after new allegations about Bovino’s direct involvement surfaced. By Friday, she was demanding his presence in court docket.
“The Courtroom units a standing listening to for 10/28/2025 at 10:00 AM,” Ellis wrote. “The Courtroom orders Defendants to supply Defendant Gregory Bovino, in individual, for this listening to.”
Attorneys representing the Chicago Headline Membership and a number of other information shops filed new allegations Thursday, asserting that “Bovino was personally current within the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, apparently throwing tear gasoline right into a crowd with out justification.”
On Tuesday, attorneys for the information organizations additionally moved to make the lawsuit a category motion, anticipating quite a few potential claims from folks past journalists, together with these alleging extreme power whereas exercising their spiritual rights.
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