Trump’s Top Migrant Commander Now Admits He Lied in Court

CHICAGO — In a scathing courtroom takedown that’s rippling through the heart of President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation push, a federal judge here has accused a top Border Patrol commander of outright lying under oath, slapping sweeping restrictions on the tactics federal agents can use during immigration sweeps.

The ruling, handed down late Thursday, doesn’t just curb the violence that’s defined “Operation Midway Blitz” in this city—it’s a stark reminder that even in the Trump era, judges aren’t rubber-stamping the administration’s hardline playbook.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, an Obama appointee who’s become an unlikely thorn in the side of Homeland Security, converted a temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction that could hobble the operation through trial or settlement.

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At the center of her ire: Gregory Bovino, the 55-year-old El Centro Sector commander who’s been the gruff, trenchcoat-clad face of the blitz since it kicked off in September.

Ellis didn’t mince words, declaring Bovino’s testimony “simply not credible” and zeroing in on his admission that he’d fabricated a key detail about a chaotic tear-gas incident in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood.”

I find the government’s evidence to be simply not credible,” Ellis said in her oral ruling, according to court transcripts.

She went further, noting that the use of force by Bovino’s teams “shocks the conscience.”

For weeks, videos have shown agents unleashing tear gas, pepper balls, and rough takedowns on protesters, journalists, and even clergy outside ICE facilities and in residential streets.

One clip, played in court, captured Bovino himself hurling a canister into a crowd without warning—after claiming under oath that he’d only done so because a protester had chucked a rock at his head.

But when pressed, and with no DHS evidence to back it up, Bovino folded.

“Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied,” Ellis stated flatly.

“He admitted that he lied about whether a rock hit him before he deployed tear gas in Little Village.”

This Means Government Backing Bovino Also Lied

The judge wasn’t buying the government’s broader narrative either, dismissing claims of “rioters, gangbangers and terrorists” swarming agents as unsubstantiated, even after reviewing hundreds of hours of body-cam footage.

This isn’t some abstract legal spat—it’s playing out against the backdrop of Trump’s vow to hit 3,000 deportations a day, a target Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been racing to meet.

Operation Midway Blitz, the Chicago-focused arm of that effort, has netted nearly 3,000 arrests since mid-June, per Justice Department estimates in a separate hearing last week.

Agents, often in unmarked vans and tactical gear, have blanketed neighborhoods like Little Village, Gage Park, and Broadview, snatching up undocumented immigrants who’ve called this city home for years or decades.

Critics say it’s turned vibrant communities into war zones, with families torn apart and bystanders caught in the crossfire.

Plaintiffs in the case—a coalition led by the Chicago Headline Club, alongside Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild—cheered the injunction as a lifeline.

Their lawyer, Steve Art, pointed out a telling shift: “The tear gas use from Bovino’s so-called ‘Green Army’ had ‘suddenly stopped’ when Bovino was hauled into court,” he told reporters outside the Dirksen Federal Building.

Art called Ellis’s order one that “amps up the pressure to comply,” mandating body cameras for all agents, clear identification badges, and warnings before deploying chemical agents.

No more firing projectiles at heads, necks, or groins; no tackling non-threatening folks unless absolutely necessary for an arrest. And in residential or commercial zones Tear gas is off-limits if it risks harming innocents.

Bovino Fails to Acknowledge Wrongdoing

Bovino, for his part, has painted a darker picture of the streets.

In videotaped deposition footage released just this week—after the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Public Media petitioned Ellis to unseal it—he defended his crews’ actions as “more than exemplary.”

Asked about a clip of him body-slamming a protester named Mr. Blackburn outside the Broadview ICE facility, Bovino doubled down.

And on Thursday, even as the ruling loomed, he brushed off a Chicago Tribune photographer’s questions, insisting his agents were operating “legally, ethically and morally.”

Chicago, he added with a wry grin while munching on a Slim Jim at a Skokie gas station, is “a very tough place.” But the optics aren’t helping Bovino or the administration.

A black-and-white photo of him in a long, SS-style trenchcoat—helmet tucked under his arm amid a sea of agents—went viral last month, spawning “Nazi” memes across social media and drawing fire from civil rights groups.

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Protests have swelled outside the Dirksen courthouse and Broadview detention center, with demonstrators demanding accountability. One emotional witness, Rev. Robert Black, testified Wednesday about being struck twice in the head with pepper balls while leading prayers at Broadview.

“It shattered my sense of safety,” Black said, his voice cracking as he described shielding himself with a sign that did little good. Ellis’s injunction builds on her October temporary order, which stemmed from footage of a pastor getting pelted during a September rally.

It extends protections for journalists—requiring agents to spot “clear indicia” like press badges—and bars dispersal orders unless there’s real exigency, per DHS’s own use-of-force guidelines.

The feds have five business days to roll out training and guidance, or face contempt.

Not that DHS is backing down. In a statement, the department blasted the ruling as “an extreme act by an activist judge that risks the lives and livelihoods of law enforcement officers.”

They’ve vowed an appeal, likely headed to the Seventh Circuit, which already stepped in last week to block Ellis’s short-lived demand for Bovino to check in personally every weekday at 5:45 p.m.

That order, the appeals panel said, veered too close to “inquisitor” territory, infringing on executive turf. But the broader curbs on force? Those stuck, for now.

Overreach Concerns Grow

This Chicago showdown is just one front in a broader judicial pushback against Trump’s deportation machine. Since January, federal judges—from Trump appointees to Reagan-era holdovers—have issued over 200 rulings blocking or narrowing key pillars of the administration’s strategy.

In August, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., halted the expansion of “expedited removal,” the fast-track process that lets ICE boot migrants without a hearing if they can’t prove two years in the U.S. Cobb called it a “startling” overreach that trampled due process, potentially affecting millions arrested far from the border.

“The government’s suggestion… is downright frightening,” echoed U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo in a related New York case, warning that skipping procedure could one day ensnare U.S. citizens.

Florida’s U.S. District Judge Kyle Dudek—a Trump pick—joined the chorus last month, rejecting ICE’s mandatory detention policy that locks up everyone facing deportation, no bond hearings allowed.

“Courts around the country have since rejected the government’s new interpretation,” Dudek wrote, aligning with over 100 judges who’ve slapped down the rule at least 200 times.

In Boston, Judge Brian Murphy blocked rapid deportations to third countries without fear-of-persecution screenings, calling it another due process gut-punch.

And in March, Judge James Boasberg ordered planes turned around mid-flight after Trump invoked the dusty Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to fast-deport Venezuelans—deeming it an illegal wartime power grab.

Even when the administration admits screw-ups, the fallout lingers. In May, POLITICO reported on a Maryland man deported to El Salvador 28 minutes after a court stay—blamed on “administrative oversights.”

Another case involved a Venezuelan teen shipped off despite a settlement barring his removal; he’s still in a Salvadoran prison, with DHS claiming it can’t force his return.

The Supreme Court has waded in three times, issuing a midnight emergency order last month to pause Alien Enemies Act flights.

Administration with Old Men and Old Women Stuck in Their Ways

Back in Chicago, the blitz rolls on, but with new guardrails. On the ground Thursday—hours before Ellis’s hammer fell—agents fired pepper balls at a moving car in Gage Park and trained rifles on folks in Little Village.

Protesters gathered outside the courthouse Friday, chanting for Bovino’s ouster.

“It’s a disgrace,” one demonstrator, Maria Gonzalez, told the Chicago Sun-Times, recounting how agents questioned her brown-skinned nephew on his way home from school.

Inside a packed hearing room Wednesday, decorum crumbled as lawyers clashed over whether agents were “looking for people with brown skin.” Ellis hauled two attorneys into the hallway to cool off.

Deposition videos, now public, paint Bovino as unyielding. Grilled by civil rights attorney Locke Bowman, he clarified his CBS comment on force at Broadview: not just “exemplary,” but “more than.”

He leads 220 agents, reports straight to Noem, and views protesters through a lens of suspicion—testifying that “hyperbolic comments” about the sweeps alone could justify arrests.

In one exchange, he wouldn’t concede he’d ever encountered non-violent demonstrators. “By Bovino’s logic,” plaintiffs’ filings argue, “anyone who shows up to protest is presumptively violent… and he can ‘go hard’ against them.”

What Comes Next?

The appeals fight looms large, but for Chicago’s immigrant communities, the damage is done. Families huddle in churches, lawyers scramble for stays, and kids ask parents why men in black vans are knocking at dawn.

Ellis, reading Carl Sandburg’s ode to the “stormy, husky, brawling City of the Big Shoulders” in court Thursday, seemed to channel that defiant spirit.

Her ruling isn’t just about tear gas—it’s a line in the sand for how far the feds can go in Trump’s America. As one plaintiff put it after the hearing: “We’ve got our city back, at least for now.”

But with Noem’s 3,000-a-day quota ticking like a bomb, and the Seventh Circuit waiting in the wings, that “now” feels fragile. Protests are already swelling for the weekend.

In a city that’s seen it all, this blitz might just be the spark that turns national.

Also Read: A DOJ Whistleblower Now Makes Revelation That Undermines the Judicial System’s Integrity

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