U.S. Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino’s standing appointment with a federal judge is off — for now.
The federal appeals court in Chicago put a temporary hold Wednesday on U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis’ requirement that the Border Patrol’s commander-at-large appear in her courtroom every weeknight until Nov. 5.
But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also gave plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit a chance to respond by the end of business Thursday. So there’s still a chance Bovino could be spending more time in Ellis’ courtroom.
Either way, Bovino is due Thursday morning at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse for a deposition behind closed doors. Ellis has said it could go as long as five hours.
Justice Department lawyers told the 7th Circuit on Wednesday that Bovino’s daily check-in with Ellis amounted to an “extraordinarily disruptive requirement.”
“The order 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,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote.
They also said it “underscores the extent to which the district court has exceeded its judicial role by arrogating to itself the role of supervising and micromanaging the day-to-day operations of an executive branch law enforcement agency.”
The 7th Circuit responded with a one-page order putting a hold on Ellis’ requirement that Bovino appear in her courtroom every weeknight. It left intact other aspects of Ellis’ order, which mandated conspicuous identifiers on federal agents’ uniforms and required the feds to turn over use-of-force reports and body-worn camera footage dating back to Sept. 2.
Also left in place is Ellis’ order that Bovino obtain a body-worn camera by the end of the week. He admitted to the judge that he did not have one, nor had he been trained on its use, even though 99% of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents here have them.
Ellis presides over a lawsuit about the feds’ treatment of protesters during the deportation campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz.” The lawsuit was brought by media organizations, including the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at the Chicago Sun-Times.
The judge earlier this month forbade federal agents from using gas and other “riot control” weapons without two warnings or against people who pose no immediate threat. Then, last week, attorneys in the case accused Bovino of personally tossing tear gas into a crowd in Little Village without justification.
The Department of Homeland Security said agents were being threatened by “hostile” members of the crowd at the time, and that warnings were given before “riot control measures” were deployed.
Still, Ellis ordered Bovino into her courtroom Tuesday, triggering a high-profile hearing in which the Border Patrol boss spent about an hour on a witness stand.
Ellis used the hearing to review the details of her earlier order with Bovino, and to ask him questions about how it’s being followed.
Neither the reporter who authored this story nor its editors — who include some represented by the Newspaper Guild — have been involved in the lawsuit described in this article.