Nov. 7 (UPI) — A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction barring federal authorities from using force against protesters, journalists and others in Chicago as the Trump administration conducts an immigration crackdown in the city.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued her ruling Thursday, in a case brought against the Trump administration in early October alleging that federal agents in Chicago have responded to protests and negative media coverage “with a pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press and civilians.”
The ruling explicitly states that the federal agents are prohibited from using crowd control weapons such as batons, rubber or plastic bullets, flash-bang grenades and tear gas against civilians unless there is “a threat of imminent harm to a law enforcement officer.”
In a bench ruling, reported on by The New York Times, Ellis said government officials, including Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official leading the operation in Chicago, lied repeatedly about the tactics they employed against protesters.
The ruling comes amid growing criticism of the Trump administration’s deployment of federal immigration authorities executing Operation Midway Blitz, which began on Sept. 9, targeting undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
Videos circulating online, however, show masked agents hauling a woman, later identified as U.S. citizen Dayanne Figueroa, from her vehicle, which they crashed into, and forcibly detaining a teacher from a daycare in front of school children. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said they detained the woman without a warrant, calling the actions of the immigration agents “domestic terrorism.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson earlier Thursday said during a press conference the daycare employee’s arrest “shocked the conscience of every single Chicagoan.”
In her bench ruling Thursday, Ellis, a President Barack Obama appointee, rejected the government’s description of Chicago as a violent- and riot-riddled city, saying, “That simply is untrue, and the government’s own evidence in this case belies that assertion.”
With pointed remarks at Bovino, she said the federal agent “admitted that he lied” about being hit in the head with a rock in October, which was his reasoning for deploying tear gas canisters.
“Video evidence ultimately disproved this,” she said, CNN reported.
Lawyers with Lovey & Lovey who brought the case before the court described it as protecting the right to protest.
Steve Art, a partner at the firm, called Ellis’ preliminary injunction in a press conference a “powerful ruling.”
“For weeks, the Trump administration has deployed Gregory Bovino and his gang of thugs to terrorize our community. They have tear gassed dozens of residential neighborhoods, they have abused the elderly, they have abused pregnant women, they have abused young children. On our streets, they have used weapons of war,” he said.
“We want to be clear every person who is associated with or who has enabled the Trump administration’s violence in Chicago should be ashamed of themselves.”
Airports in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago along with hubs across the U.S. are among the 40 that will see flights cut starting Friday due to the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to the airlines and obtained by The Associated Press.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that it would reduce air traffic by 10% across 40 “high-volume” markets to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers exhibit signs of strain during the ongoing government shutdown.
The airports impacted cover the busiest across the U.S. — including Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, and San Francisco. In some of the biggest cities — such as New York, Houston and Chicago — multiple airports will be affected.
The FAA is imposing the flight reductions to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers who are working without pay during the government shutdown and have been increasingly calling off work.
Controllers already have missed one paycheck and are scheduled to again receive nothing next week as as the shutdown drags on and the financial pressure on them mounts.
The FAA has already been delaying flights at times when airports or its other facilities are short on controllers.
Airlines said they would try to minimize the impact on travelers. United Airlines said it would focus the cuts on smaller regional routes that use smaller planes like 737s.
Passengers should start to be notified about cancellations Thursday. The AAA recommended that travelers download their airline’s app and turn on notifications. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines both said they will offer refunds to passengers who opt not to fly — even if they purchased tickets that aren’t normally refundable.
Experts predict hundreds if not thousands of flights could be canceled. The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by aviation analytics firm Cirium.
“I’m not aware in my 35-year history in the aviation market where we’ve had a situation where we’re taking these kinds of measures,” Bedford said Wednesday. “We’re in new territory in terms of government shutdowns.”
Air traffic controllers have been working unpaid since the shutdown began Oct. 1. Most work mandatory overtime six days a week, leaving little time for side jobs to help cover bills and other expenses unless they call out.
Mounting staffing pressures are forcing the agency to act, Bedford said.
“We can’t ignore it,” he said, adding that even if the shutdown ends before Friday, the FAA wouldn’t automatically resume normal operations until staffing improves and stabilizes.
Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that they would meet with airline executives to figure out how to safely implement the reductions.
Major airlines, aviation unions and the broader travel industry have been urging Congress to end the shutdown, which on Wednesday became the longest on record.
The shutdown is putting unnecessary strain on the system and “forcing difficult operational decisions that disrupt travel and damage confidence in the U.S. air travel experience,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman in a statement.
Duffy warned on Tuesday that there could be chaos in the skies if the shutdown drags on long enough for air traffic controllers to miss their second full paycheck next week.
Duffy said some controllers can get by missing one paycheck, but not two or more. And he has said some controllers are even struggling to pay for transportation to work.
Staffing can run short both in regional control centers that manage multiple airports and in individual airport towers, but they don’t always lead to flight disruptions. Throughout October, flight delays caused by staffing problems had been largely isolated and temporary.
But the past weekend brought some of the worst staffing issues since the start of the shutdown.
From Friday to Sunday evening, at least 39 air traffic control facilities reported potential staffing limits, according to an Associated Press analysis of operations plans shared through the Air Traffic Control System Command Center system. The figure, which is likely an undercount, is well above the average for weekends before the shutdown.
During weekends from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, the average number of airport towers, regional control centers and facilities monitoring traffic at higher altitudes that announced potential staffing issues was 8.3, according to the AP analysis. But during the five weekend periods since the shutdown began, the average more than tripled to 26.2 facilities.
Funk and Yamat write for the Associated Press. AP journalist Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, N.M., contributed to this report.
Nov. 5 (UPI) — A federal district judge on Wednesday ordered authorities to improve conditions inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near Chicago.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, calling the conditions “unnecessarily cruel,” acted on a class action lawsuit Wednesday after hearing several hours of testimony from five people detained at the Broadview immigration detention site west of Chicago.
“People shouldn’t be sleeping next to overflowing toilets,” Gettleman, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, said. “They should not be sleeping on top of each other.”
The four-page order also mandates detainees to be able to contact their attorneys. The order on the class action lawsuit will run from Nov. 19, when he will have another hearing though the Trump administration was told to give him a status by Friday on complying with the order.
“The court finds that plaintiffs and members of the punitive class have suffered, and are likely to suffer, irreparable harm absent the temporary relief granted herein, that they are likely to prevail on the merits of the claims, that the balance of the equities tips in their favor,” he said.
They also must be provided with a shower at least every other day; clean toilet facilities; three full meals per day; a bottle of water with each meal; adequate supplies of soap, toilet paper, and other hygiene products; and menstrual products and prescribed medications.
Holding cells also must be cleaned at least twice a day.
Regarding legal defense, detainees must have free and private phone calls with their attorneys and a list of pro bono attorneys in English and Spanish.
And they must be listed in ICE’s online detainee locator system as soon as they arrive at the Broadview facility.
The judge heard several hours of testimony about conditions at the building, which is intended to hold detainees for a few hours.
They described the inadequate food, sleeping conditions, medical care and bathrooms near where they slept. They said they slept on the floor or on plastic chairs.
The lawsuit claimed the facility “cut off detainees from the outside world,” which the government has denied.
The judge didn’t act on the plaintiff’s request to limit how many people would be kept in holding cells and limit them to not more than 12 hours if the changes aren’t enacted.
The U.S. government said the restrictions would “halt the government’s ability to enforce immigration law in Illinois.”
Nov. 5 (UPI) — A federal judge was expected to rule Wednesday after he called the conditions at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in a Chicago suburb “disgusting” after hearing more than 6 hours of testimony.
U.S District Judge Robert W. Gettleman on Tuesday reviewed the conditions at the facility in Broadview, Ill., that ICE is using as part of Operation Midway Blitz. He’s ruling on a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois last week over detainee access to lawyers and allegedly inhumane conditions there.
Gettleman told the court that what he heard qualifies for court intervention. He said he will issue a final ruling on Wednesday, and that it will not be “impossible to comply with.”
“I think everybody can admit that we don’t want to treat people the way that I heard people are being treated today,” Gettleman said after hearing testimony from five detainees being held at the facility, calling their descriptions of the facility “disgusting” and “unconstitutional.”
“It’s a disturbing record,” Gettleman said. “People sleeping shoulder to shoulder, next to overflowing toilets and human waste — that’s unacceptable.”
The Justice Department argued in a response to the ACLU’s lawsuit that people at the facility are “adequately provided with food, clothing, shelter and medical care before they are transferred to another detention facility.”
During the hearing on Tuesday, Justice Department attorney Jana Brady suggested that the five detainees may not properly recall their experience at the facility, and questioned whether they understood what was going on there in the first place.
Brady also noted, however, that authorities were working to improve conditions at the facility, which was operating beyond its normal capacity. She said there was “a learning curve” as operations continue.
In its lawsuit, the ACLU alleged that agents at the Broadview facility have treated detainees “abhorrently, depriving them of sleep, privacy, menstrual products and the ability to shower,” as well as denied entry and communication with attorneys, members of Congress, and religious and faith leaders.
The MacArthur Justice Center and Roger Baldwin Foundation, of the ACLU, called Broadview a “black hole, and federal officials are acting with impunity inside its walls.”
During the hearing on Tuesday, Gettleman heard from detainees who said they had to step over bodies at night while people slept on the floor; would wake people up when going to the bathroom because they were sleeping next to the toilet; received just a thin foil blanket or a sweater despite freezing temperatures overnight; and observed poor sanitation, clogged toilets, and blood, human fluids and insects in the sinks and the floor.
One detainee told the judge that female detainees at one point used garbage bags to unclog a toilet and that, when they asked for a broom to clean, guards refused.
The facility is a two-story building in an industrial area of the Village of Broadview, about 12 miles west of downtown Chicago, which has long been used by immigration authorities, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In June, the Department of Homeland Security changed its policy to allow detainees to be held there for as long as 72 hours, up from the 12 hours that previously had been the limit.
After hearing from witnesses that detainees have been held there for as long as 12 days, and that the building does not have beds, blankets or pillows, Gettleman said the building has “become a prison” and may be “unconstitutional.”
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday afternoon said in a post on X that Broadview is not a detention center, but rather a processing center, and that it is processing “the worst of the worst, including pedophiles, gang members and rapists.”
“All detainees are provided with three meals a day, water and have access to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” the department said in the post. “No one is denied access to proper medical care.”
“Any claims there are subprime conditions at the Broadview ICE facility are FALSE,” it added.
Noting that the facility is a key part of the department’s immigration enforcement effort in Chicago, Brady said that a temporary restraining order requiring the department to improve the facility, “as it is currently written, would effectively halt the government’s ability to enforce immigration laws in Illinois.”
An activist uses a bullhorn to shout at police near the ICE detention center as she protests in the Broadview neighborhood near Chicago on October 24, 2025. Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI | License Photo
Police in Evanston, Illinois, are investigating a violent arrest by a Customs and Border Protection agent who repeatedly punched a man’s head against the road. It happened after the agent’s vehicle was rear-ended, and a hostile crowd formed telling federal officers to leave, who responded with pepper spray and pointing their guns at protesters.
It’s unclear whether the man being punched was the driver behind the collision or part of a crowd that formed to pressure federal officers to leave. The incident sparked outrage from local leaders and renewed tensions over federal immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
Ireland’s 40-29 win in Chicago nine years ago was one of the apogees in the team’s history, while the intensity and stakes of the World Cup quarter-final extracted herculean efforts from both sides in what is widely considered the rivalry’s apex.
But Saturday’s entry did not resemble either of those games.
Neither team reached anywhere near their maximum, and with a raft of protracted stoppages for tackle reviews and injuries, it failed to deliver an interest-generating spectacle in a country which is hosting the World Cup in six years.
Ultimately, New Zealand will not care. For them, a long-awaited fifth Grand Slam of the northern hemisphere remains in play after a second-half surge that yielded three tries in 15 minutes.
Ireland, however, have much to stew on.
Last year, they opened their autumn campaign with a loss to the All Blacks. Their performance in Dublin that night was one of the flattest of the Farrell era and they were not much better here.
There were, at least, some positives. They responded strongly to Tadhg Beirne’s highly controversial early red card to lead 10-0 thanks to a Jack Crowley penalty and Tadhg Furlong’s first try since 2021.
Elsewhere, Stuart McCloskey, a surprise inclusion at inside centre, shone in his first appearance against the All Blacks before being forced off injured, while Ryan Baird staked his claim to be a regular fixture in the back row.
But while they led for 57 minutes, Ireland never seemed fully in control. Having lost a tenacious operator in Beirne, they were bested at the breakdown and missed crucial tackles, while a creaky lineout blunted their ability to create opportunities and ramp up scoreboard pressure.
Oct. 30 (UPI) — Los Angeles has toppled Chicago as America’s Rattiest City, according to exterminating company Orkin, which publishes a Top-50 list.
“With year-round warm weather, a booming culinary scene and dense neighborhoods that offer ample access to food and shelter, the City of Angels checks every box for rodent survival,” a company press release said.
“From bustling commercial corridors to hidden alleyways, Los Angeles’ signature blend of glam and grit creates a perfect storm for rodent activity.”
Chicago has held the top spot since Orkin created the annual list in 2015
The shift is most likely due to weather patterns, urban infrastructure and human behavior, the press release said.
“Rats and mice are more than a nuisance — they’re opportunists,” Ian Williams, Orkin entomologist, said in a statement. “If there’s food, warmth and a way in, they’ll find it. And once inside, their constant chewing and rapid reproduction can quickly turn a small issue into a large, expensive one.”
Rodents are known carriers of illnesses to humans, including Leptospirosis, Salmonellosis, Lymphocytic Choreomeningitis, plague and typhus.
Orkin measures the number of calls to Orkin to eliminate rats to make the rankings.
The top 25 Rattiest Cities, according to Orkin are, in order, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Hartford, Conn., Washington, D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Denver, Cleveland, Baltimore and Boston.
Also, Indianapolis, Dallas, Milwaukee, Seattle, Atlanta, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Tampa, Fla., Houston, San Diego and Grand Rapids, Mich.
CHICAGO — An appeals court intervened Wednesday and suddenly blocked an order that required a senior Border Patrol official to give unprecedented daily briefings to a judge about immigration sweeps in Chicago.
The one-page suspension by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals came before Greg Bovino’s first scheduled, late afternoon meeting with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at the courthouse in downtown Chicago.
Ellis had ordered the meetings Tuesday after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by government agents working Operation Midway Blitz. It has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.
Bovino told Fox News that he was eager to talk to Ellis. But government lawyers, at the same time, were appealing her decision. Lawyers for news outlets and activists who say agents have used too much force, including tear gas, have until 5 p.m. Thursday to respond in the appeals court.
Ellis’ order followed enforcement actions in which tear gas was used, including in a neighborhood where children had gathered for a Halloween parade last weekend on the city’s Northwest Side. Neighbors had joined in the street as someone was arrested.
“Halloween is on Friday,” she said. “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.”
Bovino defended agents’ actions.
“If she wants to meet with me every day, then she’s going to see, she’s going to have a very good firsthand look at just how bad things really are on the streets of Chicago,” Bovino told Fox News. “I look forward to meeting with that judge to show her exactly what’s happening and the extreme amount of violence perpetrated against law enforcement here.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors filed charges against Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic congressional candidate, and five other people over protests at an immigration enforcement building in Broadview, outside Chicago. The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, alleges they illegally blocked an agent’s car on Sept. 26.
Abughazaleh said the prosecution was an “attempt to silence dissent.”
The Chicago court actions came as groups and officials across the country have filed lawsuits aimed at restricting federal deployments of National Guard troops.
President Trump’s administration will remain blocked from deploying troops in the Chicago area until at least the latter half of November, following a U.S. Supreme Court order Wednesday calling on the parties to file additional legal briefs.
The justices indicated they would not act before Nov. 17 on the administration’s emergency appeal to overturn a lower-court ruling that has blocked the troop deployments.
In Portland, Ore., a federal trial seeking to block a troop deployment got underway Wednesday morning with a police commander describing on the witness stand how federal agents at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building repeatedly fired tear gas at nonviolent protesters.
In Chicago, Bovino, who is chief of the Border Patrol sector in El Centro, Calif., was to sit for a daily 5:45 p.m. briefing to report how his agents are enforcing the law and whether they are staying within constitutional bounds, Ellis said. The check-ins were to take place until a Nov. 5 hearing.
Ellis also demanded that Bovino produce all use-of-force reports since Sept. 2 from agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz.
The judge expressed confidence Tuesday that the check-ins would prevent excessive use of force in Chicago neighborhoods.
Ellis previously ordered agents to wear badges, and she has banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists. She subsequently required body cameras after the use of tear gas raised concerns that agents were not following her initial order.
Ellis set a Friday deadline for Bovino to get a camera and to complete training.
Lawyers for the government have repeatedly defended the actions of agents, including those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and told the judge that videos and other portrayals of enforcement actions have been one-sided.
Besides his court appearance, Bovino still must sit for a videotaped Thursday deposition, an interview in private, with lawyers from both sides.
Candidate Kat Abughazaleh decried the charges as ‘political prosecution’ amid a Trump standoff with Democratic cities.
A Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives has been indicted by the Department of Justice in connection with a protest in front of a federal immigration facility in Illinois.
On Wednesday, in a post on social media, Kat Abughazaleh, 26, announced that she had been charged alongside five other protesters.
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“This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights,” Abughazaleh, a progressive influencer and journalist, said in the post. “I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.”
Currently, Abughazelah is running for an open seat representing Illinois’s ninth congressional district, to the north of Chicago. She is slated to appear on the Democratic primary ballot in March.
Federal prosecutors, however, have accused her and her co-defendants of having “physically hindered and impeded” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers at a detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
The indictment said they surrounded a government vehicle, “banged aggressively”, stopped the agent from driving forward, and etched “PIG” on the body of the vehicle. It further alleged that the group broke the vehicle’s side mirrors and a windshield wiper.
Abughazaleh was charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure an officer” and “assaulting, resisting or impeding” a federal agent for the September 23 incident.
I have been charged in a federal indictment sought by the Department of Justice.This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.
Those charged alongside Abughazelah include Michael Rabbitt, a Democratic politician in Chicago’s 45th Ward, and Catherine Sharp, a Democrat running for a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
The charges come as the administration of President Donald Trump surges federal agents to Democrat-run cities as part of a large-scale deportation drive.
Several Democratic lawmakers have been charged after participating in counterprotests, including Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and US Representative LaMonica McIver. Baraka has since seen the charges against him dropped.
Trump has also sought to deploy the National Guard to several cities, including Chicago, but has been repeatedly blocked by the courts. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the Chicago case, which could have wide-ranging implications for the future of such deployments.
A federal appeals court was also set to hear a Trump administration challenge on Wednesday to a lower court’s ruling barring the National Guard deployment to Portland, Oregon.
As part of those cases, the Trump administration has faced scrutiny over its treatment of immigrants and protesters alike.
The administration has also been criticised for comparing protesters to “terrorists” and pursuing disproportionate charges in court.
Even Abughazelah’s opponent in the 2026 Democratic primary, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, was among those condemning Wednesday’s indictment.
“The only people engaged in violent and dangerous behavior at Broadview have been ICE,” Biss said in a statement carried by the local news site Evanston Now.
Biss noted he had also protested the “kidnapping of our neighbours” at the facility multiple times.
“Now, the Trump Administration is targeting protestors, including political candidates, in an effort to silence dissent and scare residents into submission,” Biss said. “It won’t work.”
CHICAGO — A Democratic congressional candidate in Illinois has been indicted for blocking a federal agent’s vehicle during September protests outside an immigration enforcement building in suburban Chicago, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.
The felony indictment, filed last week by a special grand jury, accuses Kat Abughazaleh and five others of conspiring to impede an officer.
“This is a political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent, a right protected under the First Amendment. This case is a major push by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish anyone who speaks out against them,” Abughazaleh said Wednesday in a video posted to BlueSky.
Protesters have been gathering outside the immigration center to oppose enforcement operations in the Chicago area that have led to more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.
Greg Bovino, who is leading Border Patrol efforts in Chicago, was ordered this week by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis to brief her every evening about the operations, beginning on Wednesday. It is an unprecedented bid to impose real-time oversight on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by agents.
Federal prosecutors accuse Abughazaleh and others of surrounding a vehicle driven by a federal agent on Sept. 26 and attempting to stop it from entering the facility.
Among the others named in the indictment are a candidate for the Cook County Board, a Democratic ward committeeman and a trustee in suburban Oak Park. The charges accuse all six of conspiring to impede an officer.
Abughazaleh is scheduled to make an initial court appearance next week. A message left with her campaign wasn’t immediately returned. Her attorney called the charges “unjust.”
The indictment said the group banged on the car, pushed against it, broke a mirror and scratched the text “PIG” on the vehicle, the indictment said.
Abughazaleh at one point put her hands on the vehicle’s hood and braced her body against it while staying in its way, the indictment says. The agent was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators,” it says.
Abughazaleh is running in a crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schawkosky.
Protesting the immigration crackdown around Chicago has emerged as a top issue on campaigns in Illinois’ March primary. Elected officials and candidates in the Democratic stronghold have often showed up for demonstrations outside the Broadview federal facility.
“As I and others have exercised our First Amendment rights, ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls, and teargassed hundreds of protesters, simply because we had the gall to say that masked men coming into our communities, abducting our neighbors, and terrorizing us cannot be our new normal,” Abughazaleh says in the video.
“As scary as all of this is, I have spent my career fighting America’s backslide into fascism,” she says. “I’m not gonna stop now, and I hope you won’t either.”
Tareen and Seewer write for the Associated Press. Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.
CHICAGO — A judge on Tuesday ordered a senior U.S. Border Patrol official to meet her each evening to discuss the government’s immigration crackdown in the Chicago area, an extraordinary step following weeks of street confrontations, tear gas volleys and complaints of excessive force.
“Yes, ma’am,” responded Greg Bovino, who has become the face of the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps in America’s big cities.
Bovino got an earful from U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis as soon as he settled into the witness chair in his green uniform.
Ellis quickly expressed concerns about video and other images from an illegal immigration drive that has produced more than 1,800 arrests since September. The hearing is the latest in a lawsuit by news outlets and protesters who say agents have used too much force, including tear gas, during demonstrations.
“My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress. … My role is simply to see that in the enforcement of those laws, the agents are acting in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution,” the judge said.
Bovino is chief of the Border Patrol sector in El Centro, Calif., one of nine sectors on the Mexican border.
The judge wants him to meet her in person daily at 6 p.m. “to hear about how the day went.”
“I suspect, that now knowing where we are and that he understands what I expect, I don’t know that we’re going to see a whole lot of tear gas deployed in the next week,” Ellis said.
Ellis zeroed in on reports that Border Patrol agents disrupted a children’s Halloween parade with tear gas on the city’s Northwest Side over the weekend. Neighbors had gathered in the street as someone was arrested.
“Those kids were tear-gassed on their way to celebrate Halloween in their local school parking lot,” Ellis said. “And I can only imagine how terrified they were. These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday. And it’s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.”
Ellis ordered Bovino to produce all use-of-force reports since Sept. 2 from agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz. She first demanded them by the end of Tuesday, but Bovino said it would be “physically impossible” because of the “sheer amount.”
Lawyers for the government have repeatedly defended the actions of agents, including those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and told the judge that videos and other portrayals have been one-sided.
Besides his court appearance, Bovino still must sit for a deposition, an interview in private, with lawyers from both sides.
The judge has already ordered agents to wear badges, and she’s banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists. She subsequently required body cameras after the use of tear gas raised concerns that agents were not following her initial order.
Ellis set a Friday deadline for Bovino to get a camera and to complete training.
Attorneys representing a coalition of news outlets and protesters claim he violated the judge’s use-of-force order in Little Village, a Mexican enclave in Chicago, and they filed an image of him allegedly “throwing tear gas into a crowd without justification.”
Over the weekend, masked agents and unmarked SUVs were seen on Chicago’s wealthier, predominantly white North Side, where video showed chemical agents deployed in a street. Agents have been recorded using tear gas several times over the past few weeks.
Bovino also led the immigration operation in Los Angeles in recent months, leading to thousands of arrests. Agents smashed car windows, blew open a door to a house and patrolled MacArthur Park on horseback.
Jack DeJohnette, the prolific and versatile jazz drummer who played with Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis — including on Davis’ groundbreaking 1970 album “Bitches Brew,” which helped kick off the jazz fusion era — died Sunday. He was 83.
His death was announced in a post on Instagram, which said he died at a hospital in Kingston, N.Y., near his home in Woodstock. DeJohnette’s wife, Lydia, told NPR the cause was congestive heart failure.
As a member of Davis’ band in the late ’60s and early ’70s — a group that also counted Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett and Billy Cobham among its members — DeJohnette pumped out psychedelic rock and funk rhythms that put Davis’ music in conversation with that of artists like James Brown and Sly Stone. In addition to “Bitches Brew,” which was inducted this year into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, DeJohnette played on Davis’ “At Fillmore,” “Live-Evil” and “On the Corner” albums, the last of which was panned by critics when it came out but now is regarded as a jazz-funk landmark.
DeJohnette won two Grammy Awards on six nominations; in 2012, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment of the Arts.
Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, who played on DeJohnette’s 1992 album “Music for the Fifth World,” called DeJohnette “the GOAT” on social media on Monday and wrote that his “influence & importance to Jazz, and contemporary improvised music can not be overstated.”
DeJohnette was born Aug. 9, 1942, in Chicago. Encouraged by an uncle who worked as a jazz radio DJ, he learned to play piano as a child and went on to play with Sun Ra as he circulated among the forward-looking artists of Chicago’s Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He moved to New York in the mid-’60s and joined Charles Lloyd’s quartet before collaborating with Evans and then with Davis.
“We couldn’t wait to play,” he said of his tenure in Davis’ band in a 1990 interview with The Times. “Miles developed our talents by allowing us to progress naturally, having us play his music and accept the responsibility that goes with discipline and freedom. He learned from us, and we learned from him.”
After leaving Davis’ band, DeJohnette continued collaborating with Jarrett, the influential pianist; the two formed a long-running group known as the Standards Trio with the bassist Gary Peacock that focused on material from the Great American Songbook. The drummer also led the bands New Directions and Special Edition and formed groups with Ravi Coltrane and with John Scofield.
In 2016, he released “Return,” a solo-piano album that served as a sequel of sorts to 1985’s “The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album.” According to the New York Times, DeJohnette’s survivors include his wife, who also managed his career, and their two daughters.
A 24-year-old Honduran man who was fleeing federal immigration agents in Virginia died on a highway after being struck by a vehicle.
The death of Josué Castro Rivera follows recent incidents in which three other immigrants in Chicago and California were killed during immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration’s crackdown.
Castro Rivera was headed to a gardening job Thursday when his vehicle was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, brother Henry Castro said.
Agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and the three other passengers, and he fled on foot, tried to cross Interstate 264 in Norfolk and was fatally struck, according to state and federal authorities.
Castro Rivera came to the United States four years ago and was working to send money to family in Honduras, according to his brother.
“He had a very good heart,” Castro said Sunday.
The Department of Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped by ICE as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and passengers were detained for allegedly living in the country without legal permission.
DHS said in a statement that Castro Rivera “resisted heavily and fled” and died after a passing vehicle struck him. DHS officials did not respond Sunday to requests for further comment.
Virginia State Police said officers responded to a report of a vehicle-pedestrian crash around 11 a.m. Thursday on eastbound I-264 at the Military Highway interchange. Police said Castro Rivera was hit by a 2002 Ford pickup and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The crash remains under investigation.
Federal authorities and state police gave his first name as Jose, but family members said it was Josué. DHS and state police did not explain the discrepancy.
Castro called his brother’s death an injustice and said he is raising money to transport the body back to Honduras for the funeral.
“He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him,” Castro said.
DHS blamed Castro Rivera’s death on “a direct result of every politician, activist and reporter who continue to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention.”
Similar deaths amid immigration operations elsewhere have triggered protests, lawsuits and calls for investigation amid claims that the Trump administration’s initial accounts are misleading.
Last month in suburban Chicago, federal immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop. DHS initially said a federal officer was “seriously injured,” but police body camera video showed the federal officer walking around and describing his own injuries as “ nothing major.”
In July, a farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid at a California cannabis facility died of his injuries. And in August, a man ran away from federal agents onto a freeway in the same state and was fatally struck by a vehicle.
Tareen and Walling write for the Associated Press.
CHICAGO — Hoan Huynh was going door to door informing businesses of ramped-up immigration enforcement on Chicago’s North Side when the Democratic state lawmaker got an activist notification of federal agents nearby.
He followed agents’ vehicles and then honked to warn others when he was pulled over. Masked federal officers pointed a gun at him and a staffer, attempted to break his car window and took photos of their faces before issuing a warning, he recounted.
“We were nonviolent,” Huynh said of Tuesday’s incident, part of which was captured on video. “We identified ourselves as an elected official and my hands were visible.”
As the Trump administration intensifies an immigration crackdown across the nation’s third-largest city and its suburbs, elected officials in the Democratic stronghold have been increasingly caught in tense encounters with federal agents. Members of the Chicago City Council and their staffers as well as state legislators and congressional candidates report being threatened, handcuffed and detained in recent days.
The tense political atmosphere comes as President Trump has vowed to expand military deployments and jail Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson — both Democrats — over immigration policies the Republican claims protect criminals.
Illinois Democrats deem the actions to be scare tactics and a calculated acceleration. The clashes, amid constant arrests of immigrants and protesters, have emerged as a top campaign issue in the state’s March primary, where an unusually high number of congressional seats are open.
“This is an escalation with the interests of creating fear and intimidation in my community and in all of Chicago,” said Alderman Mike Rodriguez, whose ward includes heavily immigrant and Latino neighborhoods.
During an enforcement operation Wednesday in the city’s Mexican enclave of Little Village and adjacent suburb of Cicero, at least eight people, including four U.S. citizens, were detained, he said.
Two of those citizens work in his office, including Chief of Staff Elianne Bahena, and were held for hours, he said. Bahena also serves on an elected police accountability council. Rodriguez said they did nothing wrong but didn’t offer details.
“Trump sent his goons to my neighborhood to intimidate, and in the process of helping people out, my staff got detained,” he said Thursday amid continued federal presence in Little Village. Among other things, agents deployed chemical agents and detained a 16-year-old, activists and elected officials said.
Though the operation’s focus has been concentrated in Latino neighborhoods and suburbs, federal agents have been spotted all over the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs. Word of pedestrian and traffic stops outside schools, stores, courts and an O’Hare International Airport parking lot used by rideshare drivers have triggered waves of frustration amid the city’s active immigrant rights network and residents who follow vehicles, blow warning whistles and take videos.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended its operations, including the detention of U.S. citizens, saying they are temporarily held for safety. The agency, which didn’t answer questions about Rodriguez’s staff, accused Huynh of “stalking” agents.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents had to assess whether he was a threat.
“This behavior is unbecoming of a public servant and is just another example of sanctuary politicians putting our officers at risk,” she said in a statement.
Also this week, City Council member Jessie Fuentes filed a federal tort claim seeking $100,000 in damages after agents grabbed and handcuffed her this month at a hospital. She said she was checking on a person who was injured while being pursued by immigration agents and asked for a signed judicial warrant on the person’s behalf. She was handcuffed and let go outside the hospital. She wasn’t charged.
“It is indeed a frightening time when unidentified federal agents shove, grab, handcuff and detain an elected official in the exercise of her duties,” said Jan Susler, Fuentes’ attorney.
Huynh, who was elected to the Illinois House in 2022, is running for Congress to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schawkosky, among four open House seats in safely Democratic territory. Other candidates in the crowded primary have also publicized their opposition outside a federal immigration processing center, including Kat Abughazaleh, who was thrown on the ground by federal agents as she protested.
For Huynh, who came to the U.S. in the 1990s from Vietnam and was granted political asylum, the feeling is familiar.
“My family came as refugees from the Vietnam War, where people were being picked up by the secret police all the time. We believed in the American ideal of due process,” he said. “It is very concerning that in this country right now and very disturbing right now that we are living under this authoritarian regime.”
CHICAGO — The detention by immigration authorities of a Chicago man whose 16-year-old daughter is undergoing treatment for advanced cancer is illegal, and he must be given a bond hearing by Oct. 31, a federal judge has ruled.
Attorneys for Ruben Torres Maldonado, 40, who was detained Oct. 18, have petitioned for his release as his deportation case goes through the system. While U.S. District Judge Jeremy Daniel said in an order Friday that Torres’ detention is illegal and violates his due process rights, he also said he could not order his immediate release.
“While sympathetic to the plight the petitioner’s daughter faces due to her health concerns, the court must act within the constraints of the relevant statutes, rules, and precedents,” the judge wrote Friday.
Torres’ attorney took the ruling as a win — for now.
“We’re pleased that the judge ruled in our favor in determining that ICE is illegally detaining Ruben. We will now turn the fight to immigration court so we can secure Ruben’s release on bond while he applies for permanent residence status,” his attorney, Kalman Resnick, said in a statement Friday night.
Torres, a painter and home renovator, was detained at a suburban Home Depot store. His daughter, Ofelia Torres, was diagnosed in December with a rare and aggressive form of soft-tissue cancer called metastatic alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and has been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Torres entered the U.S. in 2003, according to his lawyers. He and his partner, Sandibell Hidalgo, also have a 4-year-old son. The children are both U.S. citizens, according to court records.
“My dad, like many other fathers, is a hardworking person who wakes up early in the morning and goes to work without complaining, thinking about his family,” Ofelia said in a video posted on a GoFundMe page set up for her family. “I find it so unfair that hardworking immigrant families are being targeted just because they were not born here.”
The Department of Homeland Security alleges that Torres has been living illegally in the U.S. for years and has a history of driving offenses, including speeding and driving without a valid license and insurance.
“This is nothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt to keep a criminal illegal alien in our country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “The Trump administration is fighting for the rule of law and the American people.”
At a hearing Thursday, which Ofelia attended in a wheelchair, the family’s attorneys told the judge that she was released from the hospital just a day before her father’s arrest so that she could see family and friends. But since his arrest, she had been unable to continue treatment “because of the stress and disruption,” they said.
Federal prosecutor Craig Oswald told the court that the government did not want to release Torres because he didn’t cooperate during his arrest,
Several elected officials held a news conference Wednesday to protest Torres’ arrest. The Chicago area has been at the center of a major immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in early September.
Oct. 24 (UPI) — Protesters on Friday clashed again with Customs and Enforcement Agency agents and other law enforcement outside an immigration processing center in suburban Chicago.
Other ICE operations have been reported in the southwest Chicago area, where there is a sizable immigrant population.
About 12 miles from the ICE processing center in Broadview, an elementary school was on lockdown amid reports of agents in the area.
On Thursday, about 10 miles from Broadview, two Chicago Public Schools students allegedly were assaulted by federal agents on their way to school in Little Village near the Discount Mall. The area is part of Chicago’s Mexican community.
And in Gary, Ind., about 37 miles southeast of Broadview, there was an anti-ICE protest about deportation flights from an airport.
President Donald Trump has ordered National Guard personnel into Chicagoland but a federal judge has barred them before a full trial or the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in. FBI agents also have been sent to the area, along with local police and Illinois state troopers.
In Broadview, protesters have been showing up weekly at the processing center. On Friday, the protests were contained in what authorities called a safety zone.
They are demonstrating against the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in an immigration crackdown that began Sept. 9.
“I believe that we are creating huge wounds, not only for the people who are being detained, but for the ICE officers who are doing these horrible things. I feel terrible for everybody,” Mary Kelly, who lives in nearby Oak Park, told WLS-TV.
Last Friday, Illinois State Police arrested 14 people, including one charged with obstructing/resisting police.
Residents and activists have challenged Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson’s executive orders that limit protests to between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. and restrict access to areas near the facility.
They showed up on Monday at a Village Board meeting, saying the rules infringe on their free speech.
“I witnessed agents hitting people on the ground who were doing nothing,” protester Amanda Tovar told officials.
She noted a viral incident in which the Rev. David Black was struck in the head by pepper balls by federal agents.
“We’ve been brutalized first by ICE, now by the Illinois State Police,” one speaker said. “I mean, what happened to us on Saturday is insane. We’re peaceful protesters. It’s a National Day of Protesting and we get beat up for staying past 6 p.m.”
Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez and State Sen. Celina Villanueva have criticized “fascist” tactics by federal authorities.
Alderman Daniel La Spata told WLS-TV there have been “numerous confirmed sightings of ICE” throughout the West Town community area, including Ukrainian Village, Wicker Park and the Humboldt Park border.
School on soft lockdown
A.N. Pritzker School, an elementary school, had a soft lockdown for the second day and won’t open “until further notice,” the school’s principal said in a message posted on its website.
The school is named after a business magnate, attorney and philanthropist who is the grandfather of Illinois Gov. JD Pritzer.
“This is a Soft Lockdown, it is not an actual emergency, but rather a safety precaution,” the message said.
The soft lockdown began in the early afternoon.
“I want to take a moment to speak to each of you with care and concern. It has been brought to our attention that ICE agents have been reported in our neighborhood. As your principal, my top priority is your safety and well-being,” the principal said in the message.
In Little Village, WGN-TV reported two students saw masked ICE agents in the area, and decided to join in a protest and were subsequently detained.
“These kids were en route to school,” Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez said. “They saw the horrific scenes when you see masked individuals coming for your neighbors. They were unfortunately detained. One had blood on his face.”
In all, four students from Benito Juarez High School watched the protest.
“I am so angry and frustrated that these students have to add this worry to their school day,” Liz Winfield, teacher at Benito Juarez told WGN. “They should be worrying about college acceptance or if they’re going to get a date for the school dance. It is outrageous and unacceptable. They shouldn’t be worried about being taken by ICE on the way to school in the morning.”
Witnesses said the agents, donning military-style camouflage gear and gas masks, deployed tear gas.
“I started coughing a bit and went to the park to recover and then they started throwing tear gas closer to Sacramento. They detained two young people,” State Rep. Edgar Gonzalez said.
A security guard was also arrested when he asked the agents to show a warrant.
Chicago police, responding to the situation, said they arrested one person for battery to one of their officers.
It was the second day that federal immigration agents targeted the area.
Photos and video were posted on social media. People also blew whistles warning neighbors about the agents, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
The agents were led by U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis ordered to attend a hearing Tuesday after he was accused of violating a temporary restraining order limiting federal agents’ use of certain tactics to suppress protests or prevent media coverage of immigration enforcement in Illinois.
Ellis, appointed by President Barack Obama, earlier ordered Bovino to sit for a deposition with attorneys in the case.
Protests in Indiana
Organizers on Friday led an anti-ICE demonstration at the Gary/Chicago International Airport, a joint civil-military public airport in Indiana. The airport is adjacent U.S. Customs facility where immigration processing takes place.
“There is a direct connection between NWI and Chicago ICE raids and it’s facilitated by the Gary/Chicago International Airport,” a protest flyer reads that was obtained by The TRiiBE, a collaboration with indie investigative newsroom Unraved Press and alt-weekly Chicago Reader.
On Oct. 10, Gary Mayor Eddie Melton’s statement condemned the increased ICE activity.
An activist uses a bullhorn to shout at police near the ICE detention center as she protests in the Broadview neighborhood near Chicago on October 24, 2025. Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is set to rule for the first time on whether the president has the power to deploy troops in American cities over the objections of local and state officials.
A decision could come at any time.
And even a one-line order siding with President Trump would send the message that he is free to use the military to carry out his orders — and in particular, in Democratic-controlled cities and states.
Trump administration lawyers filed an emergency appeal last week asking the court to reverse judges in Chicago who blocked the deployment of the National Guard there.
The Chicago-based judges said Trump exaggerated the threat faced by federal immigration agents and had equated “protests with riots.”
Trump administration lawyers, however, said these judges had no authority to second-guess the president. The power to deploy the National Guard “is committed to his exclusive discretion by law,” they asserted in their appeal in Trump vs. Illinois.
That broad claim of executive power might win favor with the court’s conservatives.
Administration lawyers told the court that the National Guard would “defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence” in response to aggressive immigration enforcement, but it would not carry out ordinary policing.
Yet Trump has repeatedly threatened to send U.S. troops to San Francisco and other Democratic-led cities to carry out ordinary law enforcement.
When he sent 4,000 Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in June, their mission was to protect federal buildings from protesters. But state officials said troops went beyond that and were used to carry out a show in force in MacArthur Park in July.
Newsom, Bonta warn of dangers
That’s why legal experts and Democratic officials are sounding an alarm.
“Trump v. Illinois is a make-or-break moment for this court,” said Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck, a frequent critic of the court’s pro-Trump emergency orders. “For the Supreme Court to issue a ruling that allows the president to send troops into our cities based upon contrived (or even government-provoked) facts … would be a terrible precedent for the court to set not just for what it would allow President Trump to do now but for even more grossly tyrannical conduct.”
“On June 7, for the first time in our nation’s history, the President invoked [the Militia Act of 1903] to federalize a State’s National Guard over the objections of the State’s Governor. Since that time, it has become clear that the federal government’s actions in Southern California earlier this summer were just the opening salvo in an effort to transform the role of the military in American society,” their brief said.
“At no prior point in our history has the President used the military this way: as his own personal police force, to be deployed for whatever law enforcement missions he deems appropriate. … What the federal government seeks is a standing army, drawn from state militias, deployed at the direction of the President on a nationwide basis, for civilian law enforcement purposes, for an indefinite period of time.”
Conservatives cite civil rights examples
Conservatives counter that Trump is seeking to enforce federal law in the face of strong resistance and non-cooperation at times from local officials.
“Portland and Chicago have seen violent protests outside of federal buildings, attacks on ICE and DHS agents, and organized efforts to block the enforcement of immigration law,” said UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo. “Although local officials have raised cries of a federal ‘occupation’ and ‘dictatorship,’ the Constitution places on the president the duty to ‘take care that the laws are faithfully executed.’”
He noted that presidents in the past “used these same authorities to desegregate southern schools in the 1950s after Brown v. Board of Education and to protect civil rights protesters in the 1960s. Those who cheer those interventions cannot now deny the same constitutional authority when it is exercised by a president they oppose,” he said.
The legal battle so far has sidestepped Trump’s broadest claims of unchecked power, but focused instead on whether he is acting in line with the laws adopted by Congress.
The Constitution gives Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions.”
Beginning in 1903, Congress said that “the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary” if he faces “danger of invasion by a foreign nation … danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States or the president is unable to execute the laws of the United States.”
While Trump administration lawyers claim he faces a “rebellion,” the legal dispute has focused on whether he is “unable to execute the laws.”
Lower courts have blocked deployments
Federal district judges in Portland and Chicago blocked Trump’s deployments after ruling that protesters had not prevented U.S. immigration agents from doing their jobs.
Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, described the administration’s description of “war-ravaged” Portland as “untethered to the facts.”
In Chicago, Judge April Perry, a Biden appointee, said that “political opposition is not rebellion.”
But the two appeals courts — the 9th Circuit in San Francisco and the 7th Circuit in Chicago — handed down opposite decisions.
A panel of the 9th Circuit said judges must defer to the president’s assessment of the danger faced by immigration agents. Applying that standard, the appeals court by a 2-1 vote said the National Guard deployment in Portland may proceed.
But a panel of the 7th Circuit in Chicago agreed with Perry.
“The facts do not justify the President’s actions in Illinois, even giving substantial deference to his assertions,” they said in a 3-0 ruling last week. “Federal facilities, including the processing facility in Broadview, have remained open despite regular demonstrations against the administration’s immigration policies. And though federal officers have encountered sporadic disruptions, they have been quickly contained by local, state, and federal authorities.”
Attorneys for Illinois and Chicago agreed and urged the court to turn down Trump’s appeal.
“There is no basis for claiming the President is ‘unable’ to ‘execute’ federal law in Illinois,” they said. “Federal facilities in Illinois remain open, the individuals who have violated the law by attacking federal authorities have been arrested, and enforcement of immigration law in Illinois has only increased in recent weeks.”
U.S. Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer, shown at his confirmation hearing in February, said the federal judges in Chicago had no legal or factual basis to block the Trump administration’s deployment of troops.
(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Trump’s Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer presented a dramatically different account in his appeal.
“On October 4, the President determined that the situation in Chicago had become unsustainably dangerous for federal agents, who now risk their lives to carry out basic law enforcement functions,” he wrote. “The President deployed the federalized Guardsmen to Illinois to protect federal officers and federal property.”
He disputed the idea that agents faced just peaceful protests.
“On multiple occasions, federal officers have also been hit and punched by protestors at the Broadview facility. The physical altercations became more significant and the clashes more violent as the size of the crowds swelled throughout September,” Sauer wrote. “Rioters have targeted federal officers with fireworks and have thrown bottles, rocks, and tear gas at them. More than 30 [DHS] officers have been injured during the assaults on federal law enforcement at the Broadview facility alone, resulting in multiple hospitalizations.”
He said the judges in Chicago had no legal or factual basis to block the deployment, and he urged the court to cast aside their rulings.
Like with cigarettes, la migra should come with a warning label: Proximity to ICE could be hazardous for your health.
From Los Angeles to Chicago, Portlandand New York, the evidence is ample enough that wherever Trump sends in the immigration agency, people get hurt. And not just protesters and immigrants.
That includes 13 police officers tear-gassed in Chicago earlier this month. And, now, a U.S. marshal.
Federal agents boxed in the Toyota Camry of local TikToker Carlitos Ricardo Parias — better known to his hundreds of thousands of followers as Richard LA. As Parias allegedly tried to rev his way out of the trap, an ICE agent opened fire. One bullet hit the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant — and another ricocheted into the hand of a deputy U.S. marshal.
Neither suffered life-threatening injuries, but it’s easy to imagine that things could have easily turned out worse. Such is the chaos that Trump has caused by unleashing shock troops into U.S. cities.
Rather than take responsibility and apologize for an incident that could’ve easily been lethal, Team Trump went into their default spin mode of blaming everyone but themselves.
Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the shooting was “the consequences of conduct and rhetoric by sanctuary politicians and activists who urge illegal aliens to resist arrest.”
Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli chimed in on social media soon after: “I urge California public officials to moderate their rhetoric toward federal law enforcement. Encouraging resistance to federal agents can lead to deadly consequences.” Hours later, he called Times reporter James Queally “an absolute joke, not a journalist” because my colleague noted it’s standard practice by most American law enforcement agencies to not shoot at moving vehicles. One reason is that it increases the chance of so-called friendly fire.
Federal authorities accuse Parias of ramming his car into agents’ vehicles after they boxed him in. He is being charged with assault on a federal officer.
Time, and hopefully, evidence, will show what happened — and very important, what led to what happened.
The Trump administration keeps claiming that the public anger against its immigration actions is making the job more dangerous for la migra and their sister agencies. McLaughlin and her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, keep saying there’s been a 1,000% increase in assaults on immigration agents this year like an incantation. Instead of offering concrete figures, they use the supposed stat as a shield against allegations ICE tactics are going too far and as a weapon to excuse the very brutality ICE claims it doesn’t practice.
Well, even if what they say is true, there’s only one side that’s making the job more dangerous for la migra and others during raids:
La migra.
It turns out that if you send in phalanxes of largely masked federal agents to bully and intimidate people in American cities, Americans tend not to take kindly to it.
Who knew?
Gregory Bovino, center, of U.S. Border Patrol, marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
We’re about to enter the sixth month of Trump’s plan to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. Sycophants are bragging that he’s doing the job, but they’re not caring to look at the mess left in its wake that’s becoming more and more perilous for everyone involved. They insist that those who are executing and planning raids are professionals, but professionals don’t make constant pendejos out of themselves.
Professionals don’t bring squadrons to chase after tamale ladies or day laborers, or stage flashy raids of apartments and parks that accomplish little else than footage for propaganda videos. They don’t go into neighborhoods with intimidation on their mind and ready to rough up anyone who gets in their way.
A ProPublica investigation showed that ICE has detained at least 170 U.S. citizens this year, many whom offered proof that they were in this country legally as la migra cuffed them and hauled them off to detention centers.
Professionals don’t lie like there’s a bonus attached to it — but that’s what Trump’s deportation Leviathan keeps doing. In September, McLaughlin put out a news release arguing that the shooting death of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González in Chicago by an ICE agent was justified because he was dragged a “significant distance” and suffered serious injuries. Yet body cam footage of local police who showed up to the scene captured the two ICE agents involved in the incident describing their injuries as “nothing major.”
Closer to home, a federal jury in Los Angeles last month acquitted an activist of striking a Border Patrol agent after federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega screened footage that contradicted the government’s case and poked holes in the testimony of Border Patrol staff and supervisors. Last week, ICE agents detained Oxnard activist Leonardo Martinez after a collision between their Jeep and his truck. McLaughlin initially blamed the incident on an “agitator group … engaged in recording and verbal harassment,” but footage first published by L.A. Taco showed that la migra trailed Martinez and then crashed into him twice — not the other way around.
Professionals don’t host social media accounts that regularly spew memes that paint the picture of an American homeland where white makes right and everyone else must be eliminated, like the Department of Homeland Security does. A recent post featured medieval knights wearing chain mail and helmets and wielding longswords as they encircle the slogan “The Enemies are at the Gates” above ICE’s job listing website.
The Trump administration has normalized racism and has turned cruelty into a virtue — then its mouthpieces gasp in mock horror when people resist its officially sanctioned jackbootery.
This evil buffoonery comes straight from a president who reacted to the millions of Americans who protested this weekend at No Kings rallies by posting on social media an AI-generated video of him wearing a crown and dropping feces on his critics from a jet fighter. And yet McLaughlin, Noem and other Trump bobbleheads have the gall to question why politicians decry la migra while regular people follow and film them during raids when not shouting obscenities and taunts at them?
Meanwhile, ICE is currently on a hiring spree thanks to Trump’s Bloated Beastly Bill and and has cut its training program from six months to 48 days, according to The Atlantic. It’s a desperate and potentially reckless recruitment drive.
And if you think rapidly piling more people into a clown car is going to produce less clown-like behavior by ICE on the streets of American cities, boy do I have news for you.
Activists participate in a demonstration outside the ICE detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10. A federal district judge is blocking the National Guard from deploying in the city. Photo by Christobal Herrera Ulashkevich/EPA
Oct. 22 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday extended her order blocking the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago before the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in.
District Judge April Perry, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, decided to keep the ban until there’s a full trial on the issue or the high court rules.
On Oct. 9, Perry issued the original order that was to expire Thursday.
Five days earlier, Trump ordered the deployment to Chicago.
Her earlier decision came as 200 members of the Texas National Guard arrived at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the south Chicago suburb of Broadway. People opposed to the ICE presence have protested there.
The deployment also included 300 members of the Illinois National Guard and 16 troops from California.
Perry had found there was “no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois.” She said the Department of Homeland Security’s information of protests are “unreliable.”
On Thursday, the three-judge 7th Circuit Court of Appeals backed Perry’s ruling, writing that “political opposition is not rebellion.”
The Trump administration accused the appeals judges of “judicially micromanaging the exercise of the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers.”
The federal government filed an emergency appeal to the high court.
Originally, Department of Justice lawyers proposed extending that order another 30 days in a Tuesday filing.
But because a temporary restraining order can only be extended once, the judge warned Wednesday that “whatever extension we make has to be the right one” to prevent a gap in judicial orders “that would allow troops be deployed on the streets.”
In a filing Friday to the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer said the judicial branch has no right to “second guess” a president’s judgment on national security or military actions. He said the guard is needed to protect federal immigration agents and property from protesters.
Even if the high court stays Perry’s temporary restraining order, the state would seek a “quick trial” or other expedited injunction hearing, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office said.
In Portland, Ore., an expedited trial is planned for next week after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday overturned another temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, blocking National Guard deployment there.
On Wednesday night, the Trump administration asked the full circuit not to examine the three-judge ruling.
The district judge in Oregon is planning a hearing on Friday to consider whether to dissolve or suspend the temporary restraining order.
The Trump administration is planning to send dozens of federal agents to San Francisco on Thursday, a source told CNN.
The Trump administration is sending federal agents to San Francisco following weeks of threats from the president to deploy the National Guard to the Bay Area.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement on X confirming and criticizing the agents’ upcoming arrival. He called deployment a “page right out of the dictator’s handbook” intended to create the conditions of unrest necessary to then send in the National Guard.
“He sends out masked men, he sends out Border Patrol, he sends out ICE, he creates anxiety and fear in the community so that he can lay claim to solving that by sending in the [National] Guard,” said Newsom. “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”
Around 100 federal agents, including members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are en route to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Alameda base, according to reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle. The Coast Guard and DHS did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Trump has suggested for weeks that San Francisco is next on his list for National Guard deployment, after the administration sent troops to Los Angeles and Chicago and is battling in court to send them to Portland, Ore.
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News, “We’re going to San Francisco and we’ll make it great. It’ll be great again.”
Trump has suggested that the role of the National Guard in San Francisco would be to address crime rates. However, the National Guard is generally not allowed to perform domestic law enforcement duties when federalized by the president.
In September, he said that cities with Democratic political leadership such as San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles “are very unsafe places and we are going to straighten them out.”
Trump said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training for our military, our national guard.”
Newsom urged Californians to remain peaceful in the face of the arrival of federal agents.
“President Trump and [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller’s authoritarian playbook is coming for another of our cities, and violence and vandalism are exactly what they’re looking for to invoke chaos,” said Newsom on X.
The sending of federal agents to San Francisco comes as the Trump administration continues to crack down on immigration across the nation in an attempt to carry out what the president has proclaimed is the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.
