The border patrol chief commanding dozens of federal agents in Chicago has been ordered to appear in court every day after he and his officers faced a wave of allegations that they violently detained protesters and indiscriminately fired tear gas into neighborhoods.
Greg Bovino, the top Customs and Border Protection official for Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation in Illinois, was ordered to testify in federal court Tuesday after protesters suing the administration accused Bovino and agents of repeatedly gassing residents in violation of a judge’s restraining order.
In court filings, protesters accused agents of shooting chemical agents at close range and pointing a gun at one demonstrator while saying “bang, bang” and “you’re dead, liberal.”
Protesters also allege masked agents tossed tear gas canisters while hanging out the window from the passenger seat of an unmarked SUV and “unleashed violence” the morning before a Halloween parade in a Chicago suburb, where agents allegedly tackled three people, including a 67-year-old U.S. citizen, before filling the streets with tear gas.
“That was the instance, as well, where children were present and they were dressed up in their Halloween costumes,” Illinois District Judge Sara Ellis said Tuesday.
“Those kids were tear gassed on their way to celebrate Halloween in their local school parking lot,” she said. “These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered … and it’s gonna take a long time for that to come back, if ever.”
Bovino, the face of Trump’s boots-on-the-ground anti-immigration agenda, has been ordered to appear in Ellis’s courtroom every day for the next week until November 5, when she is scheduled to hold a hearing on a preliminary injunction that could block further use of riot weapons in Chicago.
“Almost every day” since Ellis issued a restraining order earlier this month, federal agents “have violated it by using tear gas against civilians in residential neighborhoods of Chicago without any lawful basis for doing so,” plaintiffs wrote in court filings.
The plaintiffs — which include a group of protesters, faith leaders and journalists who cover demonstrations — argue that federal agents under Bovino’s command “went on a tour of Chicago neighborhoods, gassing residents in different neighborhoods each day” within the last week.
“Plainly, Defendants are not merely enforcing immigration law. Immigration enforcement does not typically require the daily use of tear gas on civilians in residential areas,” she wrote.
“Instead, the government is regularly inflicting harm on civilians who are simply protesting or observing Defendants’ violent and unprecedented paramilitary enforcement efforts in one of the country’s largest municipalities,” plaintiffs argued.
They argue that officers are “inciting violence in peaceful residential neighborhoods to transform Chicago into the very ‘war zone’ that [administration officials] use to justify the deployment of more federal force.”
“Defendants are engineering their own pretext for their presence and behavior in Chicago,” they wrote.
Over the last week, volatile scenes emerged from protests against immigration raids in Chicago’s Little Village, Lakeview and Old Irving Park neighborhoods, where masked and heavily armed and armored border patrol agents filled streets with tear gas and arrested several demonstrators.
In protests in Little Village October 23, “Bovino was apparently the first federal agent to throw a tear gas canister into the crowd,” according to plaintiffs. Bovino “did not give any audible warnings before doing so and the crowd was not being violent or committing any crimes at the time he threw the tear gas canisters,” they argued.
Images in court filings appear to show Bovino standing with agents as he lobs tear gas cans towards demonstrators.
A Homeland Security spokesperson told The Independent that Bovino was struck in the head by an object thrown by a “rioter.”
“Did Judge Ellis get hit in the head by a rock like I did this morning?” Bovino told a reporter at the scene. “Maybe she needs to see what that’s like before she gives an order like that.”
During the same interview, Bovino said “I take my orders from the executive branch.”
The border patrol chief’s statement “suggests disdain for this Court’s authority to enjoin his unlawful conduct,” according to plaintiffs.
Homeland Security officials have argued that “rioters” and “agitators” had “surrounded” and “attacked” agents at demonstrations in Chicago’s suburbs. Officers legally deployed riot weapons after the crowd “ignored” multiple warnings to leave the areas, a spokesperson told The Independent in response to questions about use-of-force measures at several demonstrations.
Secretary Kristi Noem’s “message to the rioters is clear: you will not stop us or slow us down,” assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Tuesday.
“ICE and our federal law enforcement partners will continue to enforce the law,” she added. “And if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
