Ellis

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.

Fernando writes for the Associated Press.

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.

Fernando writes for the Associated Press.

After 15 years, four records and a buzz-making barrage of shows, tours and festivals, the moody, multifaceted music of north London’s Wolf Alice is huge in the U.K., thanks to uniquely seductive soundscapes, visceral live shows and a relentless hunger for experimentation that melds rock, shoegaze and alternative pop.

With their latest studio album, “The Clearing,” the members are primed for the next level of success in the U.S., and it comes via songs that reflect their growth as individuals and as a collective.

Consisting of lead singer Ellie Rowsell, guitarist Joff Oddie, bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey, Wolf Alice provides both feminine and masculine perspectives on life that feel resonant and real, with sonic approaches that can go from raging one moment to restrained the next. They’ve honed their sound even as they’ve continued to experiment with it. The result is exciting for them and for fans, now more than ever.

“This tour has been incredible. It’s definitely been the busiest and had the biggest shows we’ve ever played in America,” Ellis tells The Times via Zoom, noting that the band’s upcoming Wiltern date in Los Angeles on Oct. 13 is almost sold out.

Wolf Alice’s connection to Los Angeles is especially significant at this phase of its career. “The Clearing” was recorded here with famed producer Greg Kurstin (Adele, Miley Cyrus), who brought his pop sensibilities to the project, even as he encouraged the band to follow its own eclectic instincts, dipping into synthy, dancy elements and balladry with bite.

“We’ve had a different producer every album, so every experience has been quite different,” says drummer Amey, who joins our Zoom later. “He was just a very calm and positive force in the studio that made all of us feel very comfortable, to be able to be the best versions of ourselves … And it did come at a time where maybe even the four of us were second-guessing ourselves. We’d been in this headspace for a while about how we wanted to treat the sonics of the record. You can get stuck in that cycle … But he was so positive that he could help us get there, and he did.”

As Taylor Swift’s latest record brings scrutiny to the construction and thematics of pop music and its presentation, Wolf Alice’s seductive sway and wistful grit feels comparatively effortless, even if it’s just as accessible.

Buzz in the U.S. started after a killer set at Coachella 2016, but we caught Wolf Alice the following year at Dave Grohl’s Cal Jam in 2017. Its emotive alt-rock melodies and charisma more than held its own next to headliners including fellow-Brit Liam Gallagher and the Foo Fighters themselves (who the band has also toured with). The material, largely off its first and second albums, “My Love Is Cool” and “Visions of a Life,” respectively, offered a compelling blend of sharp riffage and dreamy textures, which reminded us of everyone from Smashing Pumpkins to Cocteau Twins at the time. Standout tracks we noted included the dissonant “Yuk Foo” and the sassy hit “Don’t Delete the Kisses.”

After another shimmering genre-blending release, 2021’s “Blue Weekend,” and now “The Clearing,” it’s almost a decade later, and the band is even harder to codify. The members are also bonafide touring and festival vets.

“In the U.K., festival culture is, like, a whole thing. The U.S. is kind of getting more like that too,” Amey says. “But European and U.K. festival culture is a rite of passage for a teenager … it’s ingrained. If you’re starting a band, you’re thinking about festivals at some point. So we love playing them. We played Glastonbury this year, and it just felt like a really wonderful way to say, ‘We’re back, here’s some new stuff,’ and also a celebration of the old stuff.”

Old or new, creative imagery has been a consistent component of Wolf Alice’s expression. Building upon the cinematic qualities of its music, its videos elevate not only its narratives but also its rock-star personas as well.

“This album explores themes of performance which I think is prevalent in the music videos and musically, in rock ’n’ roll which we also explore,” frontwoman Rowsell shares by email. “In the past Wolf Alice have shied away from performance videos so this marks a new vibe for us.”

“Bloom Baby Bloom,” which features an “All That Jazz”-style dance sequence (with choreography by L.A.’s Ryan Heffington, known for his magical movements on the Netflix cult fave “The OA” and in Sia’s “Chandelier”) brings out the drama and audacious expression of the song, especially Rowsell’s soaring vocals. It also highlights the band’s maturation and liberation as established artists at the height of their performing powers.

Similarly, “Just Two Girls,” a sweet ode to female friendship that’s a cool, ’70s soft-rock filler track on record, becomes more of a defiant anthem for feminine freedom on video.

“It’s a wonderful license of expression in which you can kind of do whatever you want,” reflects Ellis on the videos. “It’s absurdist in its nature and there are really interesting formats to explore. We’ve had some great experiences in America making them.”

The band has also had memorable moments on Amercian late-night TV, including “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” turning in wild appearances that reflect its name (inspired by a book about feral children raised by wolves).

And while good old-fashioned live performance has helped its popularity grow, the band acknowledges that the music industry is different — even from when it started 15 years ago, with streaming’s domination and platforms like TikTok exposing music to new audiences. For a band driven by its own interpersonal chemistry, interactions and influences, it’s not top of mind.

“We’re not concerned with how it’s going to be distributed to people fundamentally, as we’re creatively trying to satisfy ourselves,” Ellis says. “I don’t think the mechanics of [music discovery] are affecting what we’re making in the studio or the creative process. There’s so much for a band to create nowadays, and to worry about … from our perspective, the music is what comes first and then everything else is hopefully just kind of a fun way of presenting it to the world.”