Judge slams feds' excuses for violence against Chicago protesters

CHICAGO (CN) — A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction to a group of protesters, journalists and clergy members on Thursday, determining that federal immigration officers used improper and excessive force against them.

“I see little reason for the use of force that the federal agents are currently using,” U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said. She issued the injunction via an oral ruling, and indicated that a full written opinion would be filed Thursday evening.

A group of Chicago-area protesters, reporters and religious leaders filed a class action against the Department of Homeland Security on Oct. 6 over federal immigration authorities’ repeated uses of excessive force toward protesters at a Broadview immigration processing facility. Ellis granted the group a temporary restraining order on Oct. 9, and it expired on Thursday as the injunction went into effect.

Ellis’ ruling came after a lengthy preliminary injunction hearing on Wednesday, during which the Barack Obama appointee appeared frustrated as attorneys continually interrupted witnesses and spoke over each other. It’s quite similar to the TRO she previously issued, but it also bans agents from using chokeholds and requires that they have two identifiers attached to their uniforms at all times.

Justice Department attorneys maintained that federal law enforcement officers have honored and protected peoples’ constitutional rights, and used force only in instances where it’s necessary.

“Plaintiffs ask this court to accept that threatening to kill law enforcement officers is peaceful protest … that throwing rocks and other objects at law enforcement is peaceful protest,” Sarmad Khojasteh, an attorney with Justice Department, said during Wednesday’s hearing. “This, of course, is nonsense.”

Khojasteh said the government’s evidence would show that people have still been able to exercise their First Amendment rights without issue, and the plaintiffs have deemed officers’ behavior as unlawful solely because of politics.

“The response from law enforcement is unlawful for no reason other than the fact that plaintiffs disagree with the Trump administration’s immigration policies,” he said.

Ellis, however, said that the evidence presented by the government was simply unreliable. She started off the Thursday morning hearing with a reading of Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago,” which describes the vibrancy and hope of the city despite its complicated history of segregation, police brutality and gun violence. She said Sandburg’s poem is how she too views Chicago.

“The government would have people believe instead that the Chicagoland area is full of violence ransacked by rioters and attacked by agitators,” she said. “That simply is untrue, and the government’s own evidence belies that assertion.”

Ellis cataloged all the inappropriate uses of nonlethal munitions from federal law enforcement officers from Sept. 18 to Halloween. She focused in particular on an instance from Oct. 23, in which Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino was seen lobbing a tear gas canister over federal agents’ heads and into a crowd of protesters in Little Village.

The incident precipitated Bovino’s Oct. 28 appearance in Ellis’ courtroom, during which she repeatedly admonished him for violating the terms of her temporary restraining order. She also ordered Bovino to give her daily updates on enforcement activities, which the Seventh Circuit blocked. During that hearing, Bovino maintained that he threw the tear gas because a rock was thrown at his head.

But in a separate private deposition, Bovino couldn’t point to video footage that showed the aforementioned rock, and admitted that a rock was thrown at him after he deployed the tear gas.

“Videos of what happened in Little Village, even from agents body cam and helicopter footage, do not match up with agents’ description of the chaos that was going on,” Ellis said Thursday morning.

She also pointed to other inconsistencies in Bovino’s testimony, such as when he denied using force despite video footage that depicted him tackling a man to the ground. Bovino said this was not a reportable use of force, and he called all of the uses of force from his agents “more than exemplary.”

Khojasteh argued during Wednesday’s hearing that a preliminary injunction would prevent federal law enforcement officers from doing their jobs.

“It’s difficult to conceive how an injunction requiring the government to comply with the Constitution could possibly be harmful," Ellis said Thursday.

It remains unclear what effect the injunction will have on “Operation Midway Blitz,” as federal immigration authorities continued tear gassing protesters after Ellis issued her TRO, although instances of violence at the protests did start to wane after Bovino appeared in her courtroom.

“I think that the Trump administration is all bark and just a little bit of bite, and so when they’re ordered by a court to comply, when they have to come and testify under oath about why they’ve done a thing, I think that has an effect,” said Steve Art, an attorney with Chicago-based firm Loevy and Loevy. “But I think the biggest effect is the effect of the community tuning in and realizing that there is lawlessness on the streets.”

Plaintiffs and their attorneys insisted that the fight against the Trump’s federal immigration crackdown doesn’t stop with Ellis’ injunction. Elizabeth Wang, a partner at Loevy and Loevy, teared up while telling the gaggle of reporters her immigration story, and she quoted George Orwell’s “1984.”

“In that book, the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and your ears. That was its final, and most essential command,” she said. “And I urge everyone, not just the press who are assembled here, but everyone to be the eyes and ears — to fight the lies that we’re seeing coming out of this administration.”

Ellis’ injunction was not the only court directive to the Trump administration over “Operation Midway Blitz” this week. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman granted a temporary restraining order in response to a class action over lurid conditions at the Broadview processing facility, which he said has become a prison.

Gettleman’s order requires immigration authorities to provide detainees with ample space to sleep, hygiene products, adequate meals and access to their attorneys, among other provisions. The Bill Clinton appointee said that he purposefully made the order vague, in part because people — aside from officers and detainees — haven’t been inside of the Broadview facility.

Federal immigration enforcement officers have until Friday to meet the conditions of Gettleman’s order, which expires on Nov. 19.

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