The Border Control commander who’s become the face of the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration-enforcement campaign in Chicago will be in a federal courtroom Tuesday for a hearing about tear gas and other controversial tactics used by his agents in city neighborhoods that allegedly violate a restraining order.
Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, a 30-year veteran border agent, is set to appear before U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at 10 a.m. at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where an overflow courtroom and special security measures are being taken to handle what is expected to be a large crowd of media and spectators.
Ellis ordered Bovino into court last week after he was seen personally throwing tear gas canisters at a crowd of protesters in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. 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.
Those allegations were among a string of incidents that have occurred in neighborhoods across the city and suburbs since Ellis entered a temporary restraining order in early October that restricts the use of tear gas and other non-lethal 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.
It’s unclear how long Tuesday’s hearing will last, but if the judge puts Bovino on the witness stand, it will be the first time he’s been required to answer any questions under oath. Ellis has also 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 a 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 incident 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 70-year-old man 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.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com