NEWS FLASH
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The judge’s nightly leash on Chicago’s immigration chief didn’t survive 24 hours.
On Wednesday, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals intervened and blocked the order that would have forced Border Patrol’s Greg Bovino to report to U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis every day at 6 p.m. The one-page suspension landed before Bovino’s first late-afternoon meeting ever happened.
Ellis issued the order Tuesday, after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by agents working Operation Midway Blitz — the sweep that has netted more than 1,800 arrests since September and drawn complaints of excessive force. What drove her decision was the weekend scene on the Northwest Side, where Border Patrol agents disrupted a children’s Halloween parade with tear gas.
“Halloween is on Friday,” Ellis said Tuesday. “I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween, where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed.”
The Justice Department called her order “extraordinarily disruptive” while appealing it, arguing it “significantly interferes with the quintessentially executive function of ensuring the Nation’s immigration laws are properly enforced by waylaying a senior executive official critical to that mission on a daily basis.” Bovino himself told Fox News he was eager to talk to the judge.
Lawyers for the news outlets and activists suing over excessive force now have until 5 p.m. Thursday to respond in the appeals court.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as this courtroom fight plays out.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
