A federal judge accused Donald Trump’s top immigration goon of lying to her court as she imposed sweeping limits on a hardline anti-migrant crackdown in Illinois.
In a humiliating courtroom defeat for the government—and setback for Trump’s deportation drive—U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino had repeatedly lied to the court, only coming clean when the evidence meant he couldn’t continue to do so, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The ruling, delivered on Thursday evening, converts a temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction that will remain in place through trial or settlement.
The order bars federal agents from using riot-control weapons on nonviolent people, requires warnings before using chemical munitions, and mandates body cameras and clear identification for officers.
In an oral ruling, Ellis said, “I find the government’s evidence to be simply not credible,” after weeks of tear-gassings, pepper-ball strikes and hard takedowns against journalists, clergy, and residents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” with excessive violence that she said “shocks the conscience.”
The Obama-appointed judge singled out Bovino, 55, for false testimony—specifically his claim that he was hit in the head with a rock before he lobbed gas at protesters—saying he “later admitted that he lied” after DHS failed to provide any evidence to support its claim.
“The use of force shocks the conscience,” Ellis told the court.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer Steve Art said the tear gas use from Bovino’s so-called “Green Army” had “suddenly stopped” when Bovino was hauled into court.
Now Ellis’ strict order bars agents from deploying tear gas in residential or commercial areas in ways that foreseeably injure non-threatening people.
They cannot fire projectiles at the head, neck, groin, spine, or female breast, or “tackle” or “body-slam” non-threatening people except as objectively necessary to effect an arrest. They must also activate body-worn cameras during specified enforcement activities.
Ellis’ order “amps up the pressure to comply,” Art added, according to WBEZ.
Ellis’s injunction largely mirrors and supersedes her temporary restraining order from October, which was obtained by a coalition led by the Chicago Headline Club and which initially mandated warnings and press protections. Thursday’s ruling extends those curbs until final judgment and compels DHS to file implementing guidance within five business days.
Bovino has been the hard-charging face of the blitz since September. In videotaped testimony, he defended force as “more than exemplary.” Ellis disagreed, citing clips of him tackling a man outside the Broadview facility and the Little Village tear-gas incident, emphasizing First Amendment harms to protesters and journalists.
The Daily Beast first reported court filings accusing Bovino of inventing the rock attack, then repeating it under oath. A Beast report published Wednesday detailed plaintiffs’ claim that there is “uncontroverted evidence” that Bovino’s story—amplified by DHS on its official accounts—was a fabrication.
On the ground Thursday, before the judgment dropped, Bovino told a Chicago Tribune photographer that agents were operating “legally, ethically and morally,” even as one team fired pepper balls at a moving car in Gage Park and others pointed rifles in Little Village.
Bovino—who has faced public criticism for his “SS-style” look—called Chicago “a very tough place” before grinning and chomping on a Slim Jim in a gas-station mini mart, the outlet reported.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Daily Beast that Ellis’ order was “an extreme act by an activist judge that risks the lives and livelihoods of law enforcement officers,” and vowed an appeal.
But Ellis said the government had not backed claims of “rioters, gangbangers and terrorists,” despite submitting hundreds of hours of video.
The Seventh Circuit last week blocked Ellis’ separate requirement that Bovino personally report to her courtroom daily, but her broader curbs remain intact.
The judge’s new order also directs DHS to identify journalists by clear indicia and forbids dispersal orders unless narrowly justified by exigency defined in DHS’s own use-of-force policy. Ellis told the parties to file a plan to keep agents informed of the limits.
