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CHICAGO (CN) — The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a federal judge’s order requiring border boss Greg Bovino to give daily immigration enforcement reports, calling it an infringement on the separation of powers.
After grilling the border commander on Tuesday over repeated violations of her previous temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis had ordered Bovino to appear in her courtroom daily at 5:45 p.m.
The order had prohibited Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from using tear gas or other non-lethal munitions on peaceful protestors, religious leaders and journalists.
Department of Justice attorneys appeared frazzled in court Tuesday after Ellis issued her order and swiftly appealed it to the Seventh Circuit, which initially stayed the order.
In an order granting the Justice Department’s petition for a writ of mandamus, the Seventh Circuit said Friday that Ellis’ order “puts the court in the position of an inquisitor rather than that of a neutral adjudicator of the parties’ adversarial presentations.”
“It sets the court up as a supervisor of Chief Bovino’s activities, intruding into personnel management decisions of the Executive Branch. These two problems are related and lead us to conclude that the order infringes on the separation of powers. Review by appeal at the end of the case would not solve the problems created in the interim, which justifies review by a prerogative writ,” the court continued in its brief order.
The Seventh Circuit only ruled on Ellis’ requirement that Bovino provide her with daily reports of his immigration enforcement activities, but not the underlying temporary restraining order, which is also up for review by the court.
The Barack Obama appointee’s Tuesday order came after an hour of her chiding Bovino for multiple instances of excessive force, including one where federal immigration authorities tear gassed an Old Irving Park residential street, just moments before a children’s Halloween parade, which was subsequently cancelled.
“Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not elicit an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer," Ellis said to Bovino in court Tuesday. “They just don’t.”
Ellis had spent much of Tuesday’s hearing reiterating the terms of her temporary restraining order, which she issued after multiple faith leaders, journalists and peaceful protestors were tear gassed at the Broadview immigration processing facility.
Federal immigration authorities also fired rubber bullets, at reporters and directly at the head of a priest at the facility, which has been at the center of much of the conflict between protestors and law enforcement since the start of “Operation Midway Blitz.”
She also highlighted that officers haven’t been wearing identification or body cameras. When she asked Bovino how many officers involved in the immigration enforcement crackdown in the Chicago area wore body cameras, he told her most of them. But when she asked him if he had a body camera, he said he did not. She ordered Bovino to get a body camera and its commensurate training by Friday.
Attorneys on behalf of the protestors, journalists and religious leaders on Tuesday also asked Ellis to prohibit federal immigration authorities from using tear gas until the full preliminary injunction hearing on Nov. 5, which she declined. She said she can’t see agents deploying a whole lot of tear gas considering the talk she had with Bovino.
“I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed or pepper balls are being deployed,” she said. “Alright? I expect everybody to act reasonably.”
Despite the judge’s orders and the legal challenges surrounding much of the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago, officers indicated no sign of slowing down their enforcement efforts on Friday. Federal agents arrested at least three people in the Albany Park neighborhood Friday morning, two of whom were citizens, according to reporting from Block Club Chicago.
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