A federal judge in Chicago has sharply criticized senior Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, finding that his testimony about federal agents’ use of force during immigration‑related operations in the city was evasive and, at points, untruthful when compared with body‑worn camera footage. An appeals court has temporarily paused part of her order requiring daily in‑person briefings, while allowing other oversight measures to remain in effect.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, an appointee of President Barack Obama, issued a lengthy injunction order in a case challenging the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations in the Chicago area. In that ruling and related proceedings, Ellis concluded that federal agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other Department of Homeland Security components repeatedly used excessive force and then offered accounts that were contradicted by body‑worn camera video.
The lawsuit centers on “Operation Midway Blitz,” a deportation campaign in Chicago and nearby suburbs. Media organizations, including the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, brought the case over what they allege was unlawful treatment of protesters, journalists and neighborhood residents during the operation.
Ellis ordered DHS to turn over use‑of‑force reports and body‑worn camera footage dating back to early September and imposed restrictions on how agents may use tear gas and other crowd‑control weapons. She also required clearer identification on agents’ uniforms and directed CBP commander‑at‑large Gregory Bovino, who has overseen the Chicago blitz, to obtain and wear a body‑worn camera himself and to appear in her courtroom every weekday evening to brief her on the day’s events.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit later granted the government a temporary stay of the requirement that Bovino report to Ellis in person each weeknight, after Justice Department lawyers argued the daily check‑ins were an “extraordinarily disruptive” intrusion into executive‑branch operations. Other parts of Ellis’s order, including document‑production and body‑camera mandates, were left in place while the appeal proceeds, and the appellate panel signaled that a more tailored injunction could emerge after full review.
In her written opinion, Ellis said that extensive body‑camera recordings and other video evidence showed federal agents firing tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls and flash‑bang grenades at members of the public without adequate warning or justification. According to the Washington Post and local outlets that have reviewed the ruling, Ellis found that officers shot flash‑bang rounds at the backs of fleeing protesters, kicked people who were on the ground, pointed guns at residents while threatening to shoot them, and used chemical agents in residential neighborhoods, including during Halloween festivities when children were present.
Ellis repeatedly contrasted those images with the official narratives federal agents submitted afterward. In one incident, according to her opinion as described by the Washington Post, agents reported that a protester had thrown a bicycle at an officer. Body‑camera footage instead showed an agent seizing a bicycle and throwing it, undermining the report. In another example, Ellis noted that an agent used the AI tool ChatGPT to help draft a use‑of‑force report based on only a brief description and several images, which she said further undercut the credibility of the government’s written accounts.
The judge reserved some of her sharpest criticism for Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official leading Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. Citing his multi‑day deposition and testimony, Ellis wrote that Bovino appeared “evasive” and at times was “outright lying,” a characterization reported by CBS Chicago and other outlets. She highlighted his shifting statements about a confrontation in the Little Village neighborhood, where he deployed tear gas at a crowd of protesters.
Initially, Bovino claimed he threw a tear gas canister only after being struck in the head with a rock, according to her ruling. He later acknowledged under questioning that the rock did not hit his helmet until after he had already deployed the gas. Ellis also rejected his description of other events, including his claims about who instigated violence at certain protests and what he said he observed gang members doing, finding that contemporaneous footage did not support his version of events.
Ellis wrote that, taken together, the video record and reporting discrepancies rendered the federal government’s overall narrative “simply not credible” and supported plaintiffs’ allegations that agents used indiscriminate and disproportionate force while mischaracterizing protesters and bystanders as aggressors. While the 7th Circuit’s stay means the scope of the final injunction could change, Ellis’s findings create a detailed court record of the conduct of federal agents during the Chicago operation and the extent to which, in her view, their sworn accounts diverged from what was captured on camera.
