CHICAGO — A federal judge was taking Border Control Cmdr. Gregory Bovino point by point through her temporary restraining order restricting the use of tear gas and other controversial tactics used by his agents in city neighborhoods, telling him that “kids dressed in Halloween costumes” do not pose any threat.

At the end of Bovino’s hourlong appearance on the witness stand, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered him to appear in court every day at 6 p.m. to report on any events that have taken place that day. She also wants all use-of-force incident reports and body-camera footage from Sept. 2 through last weekend given to her by Friday.

Ellis ordered Bovino into court Tuesday after he was seen personally throwing tear gas canisters at a crowd of protesters in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on Oct. 23. Bovino, meanwhile, has claimed he only used the gas after an angry mob was throwing objects at officers and a rock hit him in the head.

Ellis began by telling Bovino her role “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 judge said that since she’s sure Bovino would not simply ignore a court order, the only explanation for what she’s been seeing on videos sent to her by the plaintiffs is that her order is simply not clear enough. “So I thought it would be a really good idea to go through it so that we are on the same page,” she said.

Ellis then began reading her restraining order directly to Bovino, who sat in the witness box in his green uniform staring back at the judge and nodding.

Part one of the order, Ellis said, essentially ordered Bovino to leave journalists alone.

“If they are doing their job, they have to be left alone,” the judge said.

Part two ordered that Bovino and his agents cannot use tear gas or other munitions on residents who are not a danger to law 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 judge said, a reference to a confrontation Saturday where tear gas was deployed in Old Irving Park before a children’s Halloween block party. “They just don’t.”

The judge also said 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 judge said. “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.”

Bovino, a 30-year veteran border agent, is the public face of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration-enforcement blitz. His appearance caused a media frenzy at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.

Dozens of television news cameras crowded the courthouse lobby ahead of the hearing Tuesday morning, and outside the building at the corner of Jackson Boulevard and Dearborn Street a small group of protesters held signs denouncing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

An hour before the hearing was set to begin, Bovino posted a photo of a recent arrestee on social media he called a “Honduran illegal alien living in Chicago and affiliated with the Latin Kings, a violent gang.”

“This is a prime example of how our enforcement operations are out here arresting criminal illegal aliens who threaten our American way of life,” Bovino wrote, without providing the man’s name or any further details.

Shortly before 10 a.m. Bovino strode into Ellis’ 14th Floor courtroom and took a seat at the defense table in his green uniform jacket and duty belt, sipping from a bottle of water.

Ellis entered a temporary restraining order in early October that restricts the use of tear gas and other nonlethal munitions on media and protesters, requires agents to wear body cameras and says immigration officers must have clear identifying information on their uniforms or helmets when interacting with the public.

Late Monday, the plaintiffs in the suit brought by the Chicago Headline Club and others asked Ellis to bar immigration agents from using tear gas altogether pending the outcome of an injunction hearing next month.

Ellis has ordered Bovino to sit for a five-hour sworn deposition later this week, but that interview will not be made public due to a protective order.

A full injunction hearing on the issue of tear gas and other tactics is expected to be held next month.

In a statement last week, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said she “can think of nobody better to correct Judge Ellis’ deep misconceptions about its mission.”

Ellis questioned two other “Operation Midway Blitz” leaders in similar fashion last week.

In his six weeks on the ground in Chicago as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” Bovino, who previously oversaw a similar push in Los Angeles, has claimed thousands of immigration-related arrests, part of a touted “mission” to make the streets safer for law-abiding citizens.

Sporting a high-and-tight haircut and talking often in militaristic terms, Bovino has been featured in slickly produced social media videos put out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security purporting to be ridding Chicago’s streets of the “worst of the worst,” undocumented immigrants who have a history of violent criminal behavior.

But scant details of those arrested have been officially released, and critics say the vast majority have had no criminal backgrounds whatsoever.

Meanwhile, agents serving under Bovino’s command have escalated their presence in Chicago’s neighborhoods, where immigration enforcement actions in from the far East Side to Lakeview to Old Irving Park have unfolded in a now-familiar pattern, where irate residents blowing whistles and honking horns scream at agents to leave before arrests are made and tear gas deployed.

Bovino has not only not shied away from the controversy, he’s placed himself directly in it. He was present during the massive raid on a South Shore apartment building earlier this month that drew national headlines. And he reappeared last week on two separate days in Little Village, the heart of Chicago’s Mexican community and an important economic engine for the city, where agents threw tear gas near the Discount Mall.

Over the weekend, a filing by the plaintiffs in the case before Ellis accused him of lying about being struck in the head by a rock in the Little Village operation, saying the confrontation was being filmed from multiple angles and nothing had surfaced that backs up that assertion.

Bovino also gave an interview to a Spanish-language news outlet afterward where he was asked about Ellis’ order and allegedly said, “Did judge Ellis get hit in the head by a rock this morning? Maybe she needs to see what that’s like before she gives an order like that.”

“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’ filing stated.

The latest violations, according to the plaintiffs, occurred during a fracas in the Old Irving Park neighborhood over the weekend where residents were tackled and tear gassed as children prepared for a Halloween parade.

The incident in the 3700 block of Kildare Avenue, where agents chased a day laborer down the street, prompted a chaotic scene that “ruined what should have been an ordinary Saturday morning,” according to a court filing Monday by the plaintiffs in an ongoing federal lawsuit over “Operation Midway Blitz” crowd control tactics.

The filing stated that as neighbors came out to yell at the officers — including some still in their pajamas and one woman with her wet hair wrapped in a towel — the agents “unleashed violence,” tackling a man who was around 70 years old and two others and then deploying tear gas as they left the scene.

The actions violated Ellis’ restraining order in several ways, the filing alleged, including by deploying chemical munitions without the required verbal warnings. Some of the agents also had no identifying information on their uniforms and used “unnecessary force” in tackling residents who posed no physical threat, the filing stated.

In a statement over the weekend, the agency said Border Patrol agents were “surrounded and boxed in by a group of agitators” and that multiple lawful commands and verbal warnings were ignored.

“During the operation, two U.S. citizens were arrested for assaulting and impeding a federal officer,” the statement read. “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 charges had been filed against anyone arrested as of Monday. The operation also resulted in the arrest of the day laborer, who DHS said was in the country illegally and has a previous arrest for assault.

_____

©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.