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Tag: gregory bovino

  • Officials in Minnesota allege Bovino used language offensive to Jews on conference call

    Gregory Bovino, the controversial Border Patrol leader who helped oversee the immigration surge in Minnesota, allegedly used language offensive to the Jewish federal officials on a recent call, multiple sources familiar with the call told CBS News.

    The call, which was held on Jan. 12, five days after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, involved multiple federal officials who were trying to coordinate a Saturday meeting to discuss issues related to the massive deployment of federal immigration agents in the area. Bovino was told on the call that Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, an Orthodox Jew, could not attend that meeting because he observes the Sabbath.

    Bovino allegedly responded with audible frustration that Rosen was not available for the Saturday meeting, sources familiar with the planning call said. One of them recounted that Bovino replied, “Do Orthodox criminals also take off on Saturday?” 

    That source said Bovino also used the phrase “chosen people” in a disparaging manner.

    Another source briefed on the conversation described Bovino’s alleged remarks as an “antisemitic rant.” The New York Times first reported Bovino’s alleged comments.

    Reports of Bovino’s conduct on the call were relayed to Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in the Department of Justice, as well as the White House, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

    The Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the Department of Justice have not yet responded to a request for comment.

    Bovino’s remarks contributed to a growing unease between federal immigration officials and some Minnesota-based federal prosecutors, as ICE and Border Patrol officers have engaged in a widening surge of raids and arrests, and thousands took to the streets in protest in reaction, sources told CBS News.

    Bovino’s sometimes brusque manner had raised concerns previously. The former Border Patrol “commander-at-large” ran afoul of a federal judge in Chicago during deportation operations there in October. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, whose injunction limited federal immigration agents’ use of force in Chicago, criticized what she called Bovino’s “cute” responses about clashes between agents and protesters. 

    She wrote in her opinion, “Bovino appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing ‘cute’ responses to the Plaintiffs’  counsel’s questions or outright lying.” In November, an appeals court paused Ellis’ injunction. 

    Bovino was reassigned and relieved of his command in Minneapolis earlier this week after an intense backlash over how top U.S. officials, including Bovino, responded to the Jan. 24 fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by two Customs and Border Protection officers.

    On the same day that Pretti was shot, Bovino said of him that “this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” a reference to the fact that Pretti was armed with a handgun when he was killed. Some of Bovino’s claims about Pretti were soon contradicted by witnesses and video from the scene. And within several days, the government submitted a report to Congress about the case that contained no mention of Pretti ever reaching for his firearm during the skirmish with CBP agents.

    Bovino is being reassigned to his old job at California’s El Centro sector, where he served as the chief agent before the Trump administration deployed him to major American cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, to lead sweeping immigration roundups.

    The alleged comments from Bovino come at a time when the Trump administration has sought to make countering antisemitism one of its primary policy goals.

    Since last year, the Justice Department and the Department of Education launched dozens of civil rights probes into whether college campuses failed to adequately protect Jewish students during protests over the war in Gaza in 2023.

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  • Appeals court pauses order restricting use of force by immigration agents in Chicago-area crackdown

    A federal appeals court on Wednesday temporarily halted an order restricting the use of force by federal immigration agents in the Chicago area, calling it “overbroad” and “too prescriptive.”Related video above: New tension in Chicago after federal agents chased and then crashed into a vehicleBut the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also cautioned against “overreading” its stay and said a quick appeal process could lead to a “more tailored and appropriate” order.Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who claimed federal officers used excessive force during an immigration crackdown that has netted more than 3,000 arrests since September across the nation’s third-largest city and its many suburbs.Government attorneys had argued that the order restricted the enforcement of the nation’s laws and could “subvert” the constitutional structure.In issuing a stay Wednesday, the three-judge panel said the government’s arguments were likely to prevail in court.”The preliminary injunction entered by the district court is overbroad,” the two-page ruling said. “In no uncertain terms, the district court’s order enjoins an expansive range of defendants, including the President of the United States, the entire Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, and anyone acting in concert with them.”It added that the order was “too prescriptive” as it specified the types of riot control weapons and other devices in a way that “resembles a federal regulation.”Among other things, Ellis’ order restricted agents from using physical force and chemical agents like tear gas and pepper balls, unless necessary or to prevent an “an immediate threat.” She said the current practices violated the constitutional rights of journalists and protesters.During a lengthy court hearing this month, witnesses gave emotional testimony when describing experiencing tear gas, being shot in the head with pepper balls while praying, and having guns pointed at them.Ellis determined that Trump administration witnesses were “simply not credible,” including Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol commander who led the Chicago area operation before moving on to to North Carolina in recent days.Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Wednesday’s stay.Bovino, the head of a Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, has repeatedly defended agents’ use of force. He oversaw about 230 agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Chicago area starting in September. After North Carolina, federal border agents are expected to be deployed to New Orleans.The immigration operation in the Chicago area has triggered multiple lawsuits, including allegations about inhumane conditions at a federal immigration center. The legal complaint prompted a federal judge and attorneys to visit the longtime U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility outside Chicago last week.

    CHICAGO —

    A federal appeals court on Wednesday temporarily halted an order restricting the use of force by federal immigration agents in the Chicago area, calling it “overbroad” and “too prescriptive.”

    Related video above: New tension in Chicago after federal agents chased and then crashed into a vehicle

    But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also cautioned against “overreading” its stay and said a quick appeal process could lead to a “more tailored and appropriate” order.

    Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who claimed federal officers used excessive force during an immigration crackdown that has netted more than 3,000 arrests since September across the nation’s third-largest city and its many suburbs.

    Government attorneys had argued that the order restricted the enforcement of the nation’s laws and could “subvert” the constitutional structure.

    In issuing a stay Wednesday, the three-judge panel said the government’s arguments were likely to prevail in court.

    “The preliminary injunction entered by the district court is overbroad,” the two-page ruling said. “In no uncertain terms, the district court’s order enjoins an expansive range of defendants, including the President of the United States, the entire Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, and anyone acting in concert with them.”

    It added that the order was “too prescriptive” as it specified the types of riot control weapons and other devices in a way that “resembles a federal regulation.”

    Among other things, Ellis’ order restricted agents from using physical force and chemical agents like tear gas and pepper balls, unless necessary or to prevent an “an immediate threat.” She said the current practices violated the constitutional rights of journalists and protesters.

    During a lengthy court hearing this month, witnesses gave emotional testimony when describing experiencing tear gas, being shot in the head with pepper balls while praying, and having guns pointed at them.

    Ellis determined that Trump administration witnesses were “simply not credible,” including Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol commander who led the Chicago area operation before moving on to to North Carolina in recent days.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Wednesday’s stay.

    Bovino, the head of a Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, has repeatedly defended agents’ use of force. He oversaw about 230 agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Chicago area starting in September. After North Carolina, federal border agents are expected to be deployed to New Orleans.

    The immigration operation in the Chicago area has triggered multiple lawsuits, including allegations about inhumane conditions at a federal immigration center. The legal complaint prompted a federal judge and attorneys to visit the longtime U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility outside Chicago last week.

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  • DHS plans to deploy 250 border agents to Louisiana in major immigration sweep, AP sources say

    Around 250 federal border agents are set to descend on New Orleans in the coming weeks for a two-month immigration crackdown dubbed “Swamp Sweep” that aims to arrest roughly 5,000 people across southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and three people familiar with the operation.The deployment, which is expected to begin in earnest on Dec. 1, marks the latest escalation in a series of rapid-fire immigration crackdowns unfolding nationwide — from Chicago to Los Angeles to Charlotte, North Carolina — as the Trump administration moves aggressively to fulfill the president’s campaign promise of mass deportations.In Louisiana, the operation is unfolding on the home turf of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a close Trump ally who has moved to align state policy with the White House’s enforcement agenda. But, as seen in other blue cities situated in Republican-led states, increased federal enforcement presence could set up a collision with officials in liberal New Orleans who have long resisted federal sweeps.Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander tapped to run the Louisiana sweep, has become the administration’s go-to architect for large-scale immigration crackdowns — and a magnet for criticism over the tactics used in them. His selection to oversee “Swamp Sweep” signals that the administration views Louisiana as a major enforcement priority for the Trump administration.The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the operation. “For the safety and security of law enforcement we’re not going to telegraph potential operations,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.In Chicago, Bovino drew a rare public rebuke from a federal judge who said he misled the court about the threats posed by protesters and deployed tear gas and pepper balls without justification during a chaotic confrontation downtown. His teams also oversaw aggressive arrest operations in Los Angeles and more recently in Charlotte, where Border Patrol officials have touted dozens of arrests across North Carolina this week after a surging immigration crackdown that has included federal agents scouring churches, grocery stores and apartment complexes.Planning documents reviewed by the AP show Border Patrol teams preparing to fan out across neighborhoods and commercial hubs throughout southeast Louisiana, stretching from New Orleans through Jefferson, St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes and as far north as Baton Rouge, with additional activity planned in southeastern Mississippi.Agents are expected to arrive in New Orleans on Friday to begin staging equipment and vehicles before the Thanksgiving holiday, according to the people familiar with the operation. They are scheduled to return toward the end of the month, with the full sweep beginning in early December. The people familiar with the matter could not publicly discuss details of the operation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.To support an operation of that scale, federal officials are securing a network of staging sites: A portion of the FBI’s New Orleans field office has been designated as a command post, while a naval base five miles south of the city will store vehicles, equipment and thousands of pounds of “less lethal” munitions like tear gas and pepper balls, the people said. Homeland Security has also asked to use the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans for up to 90 days beginning this weekend, according to documents reviewed by the AP.Once “Swamp Sweep” begins, Louisiana will become a major testing ground for the administration’s expanding deportation strategy, and a focal point in the widening rift between federal authorities intent on carrying out large-scale arrests and city officials who have long resisted them.__Associated Press journalists Elliot Spagat and Mike Balsamo contributed to this report.

    Around 250 federal border agents are set to descend on New Orleans in the coming weeks for a two-month immigration crackdown dubbed “Swamp Sweep” that aims to arrest roughly 5,000 people across southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and three people familiar with the operation.

    The deployment, which is expected to begin in earnest on Dec. 1, marks the latest escalation in a series of rapid-fire immigration crackdowns unfolding nationwide — from Chicago to Los Angeles to Charlotte, North Carolina — as the Trump administration moves aggressively to fulfill the president’s campaign promise of mass deportations.

    In Louisiana, the operation is unfolding on the home turf of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a close Trump ally who has moved to align state policy with the White House’s enforcement agenda. But, as seen in other blue cities situated in Republican-led states, increased federal enforcement presence could set up a collision with officials in liberal New Orleans who have long resisted federal sweeps.

    Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander tapped to run the Louisiana sweep, has become the administration’s go-to architect for large-scale immigration crackdowns — and a magnet for criticism over the tactics used in them. His selection to oversee “Swamp Sweep” signals that the administration views Louisiana as a major enforcement priority for the Trump administration.

    The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the operation. “For the safety and security of law enforcement we’re not going to telegraph potential operations,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

    In Chicago, Bovino drew a rare public rebuke from a federal judge who said he misled the court about the threats posed by protesters and deployed tear gas and pepper balls without justification during a chaotic confrontation downtown. His teams also oversaw aggressive arrest operations in Los Angeles and more recently in Charlotte, where Border Patrol officials have touted dozens of arrests across North Carolina this week after a surging immigration crackdown that has included federal agents scouring churches, grocery stores and apartment complexes.

    Planning documents reviewed by the AP show Border Patrol teams preparing to fan out across neighborhoods and commercial hubs throughout southeast Louisiana, stretching from New Orleans through Jefferson, St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes and as far north as Baton Rouge, with additional activity planned in southeastern Mississippi.

    Agents are expected to arrive in New Orleans on Friday to begin staging equipment and vehicles before the Thanksgiving holiday, according to the people familiar with the operation. They are scheduled to return toward the end of the month, with the full sweep beginning in early December. The people familiar with the matter could not publicly discuss details of the operation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

    To support an operation of that scale, federal officials are securing a network of staging sites: A portion of the FBI’s New Orleans field office has been designated as a command post, while a naval base five miles south of the city will store vehicles, equipment and thousands of pounds of “less lethal” munitions like tear gas and pepper balls, the people said. Homeland Security has also asked to use the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans for up to 90 days beginning this weekend, according to documents reviewed by the AP.

    Once “Swamp Sweep” begins, Louisiana will become a major testing ground for the administration’s expanding deportation strategy, and a focal point in the widening rift between federal authorities intent on carrying out large-scale arrests and city officials who have long resisted them.

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    Associated Press journalists Elliot Spagat and Mike Balsamo contributed to this report.

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  • Gregory Bovino and CBP are headed next to Charlotte, North Carolina. That was news to city officials

    Charlotte (CNN) — Before he got a call this week from CNN about reports US Border Patrol agents might be headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, City Councilmember Malcolm Graham had no idea such a plan was even in the cards.

    None of the Charlotte officials CNN reached out to Tuesday or Wednesday about the reported move said they were aware of any plan for Gregory Bovino, the top Border Patrol official in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Democratic-led cities, and his officers to head to Charlotte, then New Orleans, according to two US officials familiar with the planning.

    As of Thursday morning, Bovino has left Chicago with his agents and is headed to Charlotte, according to a source familiar with the planning.

    “As of right now, there has been no coordination, no confirmation, no conversation from anybody. So we’re just kind of watching and waiting,” Graham, a Democrat, told CNN on Wednesday. “It’s just part and parcel of how this administration conducts itself. You learn things through tweets and media reports, no direct communication from anyone in authority. That, for me, is frustrating.”

    It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that a Charlotte official confirmed for the first time they had spoken with federal officials about the plans.

    Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden – who initially was unaware of the operation – has been “contacted by two separate federal officials confirming US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel will be arriving in the Charlotte area as early as this Saturday or the beginning of next week,” the sheriff’s office told CNN.

    The sheriff’s office said details on the federal operation have not been shared with them and they have not been asked to assist with any enforcement actions.

    The plans have put Charlotte on edge, as local officials seek to reassure residents they will be protected, even as they hold their breath, waiting to see whether they’ll be the next target in the White House’s high-profile, visibly aggressive push to send federal agents into blue cities as part of its immigration crackdown.

    US Rep. Alma Adams, whose district includes much of Charlotte, wrote she was “extremely concerned about the deployment of U.S. Border Patrol and ICE agents to Charlotte” in a post on X.

    “Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and what we have seen border patrol and ICE agents do in places like Chicago and Los Angeles – using excessive force in their operations and tear gassing peaceful protesters – threatens the wellbeing of the communities they enter,” Adams said.

    In response, Bovino wrote, “Immigrants rest assured, we have your back like we did in Chicago and Los Angeles,” and urged undocumented immigrants to self-deport.

    “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country. We do not discuss future or potential operations,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN in a statement Thursday.

    On Tuesday, McLaughlin had told CNN, “We aren’t leaving Chicago.”

    Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are not involved in planning federal operations, nor have they been in contact with federal officials regarding the reported move.

    Charlotte’s city police department doesn’t participate in federal immigration operations and would only get involved when there are warrants or criminal behavior under its jurisdiction, so “people who need local law enforcement services should feel secure calling 911,” said Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, in a social media statement.

    “We still don’t know any details on where they may be operating and to what extent,” Lyles said Thursday. “I understand this news will create uncertainty and anxiety for many people in our community.”

    Lyles asked residents to refrain from sharing unverified information about enforcement activities, which create “more fear and uncertainty when we need to be standing together.”

    Residents are already on edge

    Officials in other cities have described Bovino as leading a law enforcement agency which deploys tactics that are frighteningly authoritarian and used by the president as a cudgel against Democrat-led localities and the people — citizens and noncitizens alike — who live in them.

    Heavy-handed tactics, including immigration sweeps in parking lots and smashing car windows, have fueled alarm, including some among some in the Trump administration, while also garnering praise from senior Homeland Security officials.

    Even though the federal government has not confirmed Bovino’s operation in the city, just the possibility has a community already on edge spooked.

    The Carolina Migrant Network, a nonprofit that offers legal counsel to immigrants, told CNN Wednesday it is already receiving reports from frightened residents who believe they may have spotted Border Patrol in the city, though the organization said it has not verified any of those sightings.

    “We’re getting ready. We’re retraining our ICE verifiers and uplifting our ICE verification network right now,” said Stefania Arteaga, the organization’s co-executive director.

    “The fear is there. People are seeing viral videos of children getting pepper sprayed,” said Arteaga. “These are images that are going viral in our communities. There is fear that this could come to Charlotte.”

    The sometimes violent, viral images from other cities, coupled with an increased immigration enforcement locally this year, have created a chilling effect in Charlotte, City Councilmember Dimple Ajmera said.

    North Carolina’s foreign-born population has increased eightfold since 1990, according to state data.

    “We have more than 150,000 foreign-born residents who call our city their home,” Ajmera told CNN. “Real anxiety and fear are in our communities. Bakeries and coffee shops are empty. Children are not being sent to school.”

    On Friday, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein encouraged residents who see inappropriate behavior to record it on their phones and notify local law enforcement.

    “We should all focus on and arrest violent criminals and drug traffickers. Unfortunately, that’s not always what we have seen with ICE and Border Patrol Agents in Chicago and elsewhere around the country,” the governor said in a statement. “The vast majority of people they have detained have no criminal convictions, and some are American citizens.”

    Local officials were in the dark

    Ajmera also told CNN that federal officials hadn’t yet coordinated with the city, saying, “We are probably going to find out at the same time the community finds out.”

    Stein, a Democrat, told reporters after an unrelated event in Charlotte on Wednesday afternoon that he’d reached out to the White House after seeing reports in the media, but “we have not heard from them, so we don’t know what their plans are.”

    The governor acknowledged he was concerned by some of the images that came out of the operation in Chicago.

    “We don’t know what their plans are here for Charlotte. If they come in and they are targeted in what they do, we will thank them. If they come in and wreak havoc and cause chaos and fear, we will be very concerned,” he said.

    State Sen. Caleb Theodros, a Democrat representing Charlotte, called the potential operation in his city “political theater.”

    The lone Republican who will sit on the city council next year, after Democrats flipped a GOP seat in this month’s election, told CNN undocumented immigrants who commit crimes should be deported, and the country needs a process to identify illegal immigrants who have not committed crimes and “where appropriate, establish a legal basis for their presence in this country.”

    “CBP operations in any community should be coordinated with state and local authorities to avoid anxiety and disruption among legal residents,” Ed Driggs told CNN.

    Why would CBP head to Charlotte?

    Charlotte hasn’t been previously publicly singled out as an enhanced immigration enforcement target by the Trump administration in the same way as other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles or even New Orleans.

    And while other cities Trump has targeted with his immigration crackdown are closer to US borders, Charlotte is hundreds of miles away from both the northern and southern edges of the country.

    But it is one of the places that Trump has focused on in recent months as part of his crusade against crime in populous, Democratic-run cities.

    Intense public outrage swept across the country earlier this year after chilling surveillance video was released showing a young Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, being stabbed to death on the city’s light rail train by a suspect who had a lengthy criminal history and documented mental health struggles.

    Trump posted about the stabbing on Truth Social, criticizing Democratic policies and promoting a Republican candidate in next year’s closely watched Senate race.

    “North Carolina, and every State, needs LAW AND ORDER, and only Republicans will deliver it!” he wrote.

    Though the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has said data shows the city has seen a reduction in violent crime this year, three Republican members of Congress representing districts around the Charlotte area asked the governor just this month to send the National Guard to Charlotte to help curb crime, highlighting a spike in homicides in the city’s uptown area.

    And Bovino himself will be in familiar ground if he finds himself in Charlotte: He is originally from western North Carolina, graduated from Watauga High School and has degrees from Western Carolina University and Appalachian State University.

    On October 14, Bovino responded to an account on X that said they hoped Bovino’s team would visit the North Carolina city.

    “We’ll put Charlotte on the list!!!” Bovino wrote.

    Asked by CNN last month where he planned to go next, Bovino said any decision would be based on intelligence.

    “We’ve got a great leadership team that we work for that we look to for leadership and that would be President Trump, (Homeland Security Secretary) Kristi Noem, and all of those folks,” he said. “We pay attention to what they say, and we pay attention to what our intelligence says. We marry those up, and we hit it hard.”

    What have local officials said about federal immigration enforcement previously?

    State Republican leadership has long targeted Charlotte and Mecklenburg County’s approach to immigration enforcement. Though Charlotte is not a “sanctuary city,” it does claim it is a “Certified Welcoming City,” a formal designation for cities with commitments to immigrant inclusion.

    Shortly after taking office in 2018, Mecklenburg County Sheriff McFadden ended the county’s decade-long 287(g) partnership with ICE, which allows local and state law enforcement to perform some immigration enforcement duties. McFadden was also an outspoken opponent of a new state law that expanded ICE authorities over people detained in local jails and required sheriffs to work more closely with ICE officials. That law went into effect in October after the Republican-controlled General Assembly overrode Stein’s veto.

    A few weeks ago, McFadden announced that he’d had a “productive” meeting with ICE officials where they discussed how to “establish a better working relationship” and improve communications, along with courthouse procedures.

    “I don’t want to stop ICE from doing their job, but I do want them to do it safely, responsibly, and with proper coordination by notifying our agency ahead of time,” McFadden said in a statement.

    Arteaga, of the Carolina Migrant Network, said her organization has observed a significant spike in ICE activity around the Charlotte area since the start of the year and a further increase in activity since the new law went into effect last month.

    Charlotte’s local officials weren’t the only ones caught off guard

    Charlotte isn’t the only city where officials say they’ve been kept in the dark before an operation like this might begin. The situation in Charlotte right now mirrors, in a more muted manner, the reaction from local officials in Chicago before “Operation Midway Blitz” began there.

    In August, CNN reported that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the administration had failed to contact his office or the mayor, ahead of what was then the reported deployment, and he slammed the lack of coordination.

    The New Orleans Mayor’s Office has not responded to CNN’s outreach about possible future Border Patrol operations there.

    Stein noted that Border Patrol “has national jurisdiction so there is nothing that we could do, even if we were to want to, to stop them from coming. We’re just going to have to see what their plans are. We want to hear from them so we can plan accordingly.”

    Dianne Gallagher, Priscilla Alvarez and CNN

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  • Chicago judge hears challenge to federal agents’ use of force, ruling expected ahead of TRO expiring

    CHICAGO (WLS) — A federal judge listened to arguments Wednesday for possibly extending restrictions on federal agents working in Chicago as part of Operation Midway Blitz.

    There was testimony from protesters, elected officials and media members accusing federal agents of violating their constitutional rights with repeated use of force. The government continues to dispute that, saying agents have only targeted rioters and not peaceful protesters.

    The judge said a ruling will be issued Thursday morning.

    ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch

    Wednesday’s preliminary injunction hearing was the culmination of a month-long court battle that began after several media organizations filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over federal agents use of force tactics against protesters and journalists.

    Since then, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis imposed a temporary restraining order that limits how and when agents can deploy chemical agents can be used. That TRO, which has, according to plaintiffs been violated countless times, including by CBP Commander Gregory Bovino himself, expires Thursday.

    Attorneys representing journalists, clergymen and demonstrators who say they’ve been harmed by federal immigration agents during protests and operations were expected to show images and videos of confrontations with agents and also call on witnesses in court.

    Judge Ellis’ temporary restraining order restricts federal agents from using “riot control weapons” against journalists, protestors and religious practitioners without first issuing warnings unless necessary to stop an immediate threat.

    RELATED | Chicago federal intervention: Tracking surge in immigration enforcement operations | Live updates

    Plaintiffs argued the incidents shown in court to the judge violate the judge’s order.

    Government lawyers said agents have a right to protect themselves while DHS says agents have been harassed and followed by what they call violent protestors.

    Bovino was not in court Wednesday as attorneys allege overnight he lied under oath about an incident last month, where he is seen lobbing tear gas at Little Village protestors during a confrontation with agents amid immigration operations.

    DHS argued a rock was thrown at Bovino and struck him in the head, but plaintiffs argue they have not found footage showing a rock striking Bovino.

    Through a recorded deposition taken last week, Bovino insisted that all uses of force so far have been perpetrated not on peaceful protesters but on what he calls violent rioters.

    Bovino said at one point, “I believe that all uses of force that I have seen and all arrests that I have seen have been more than exemplary.”

    Bovino’s comments were contradicted by the testimony of nine witnesses called by plaintiffs: elected officials, media representatives and everyday people describing their interactions with federal agents during protests that have broken out, not just outside ICE’s Broadview facility but also in neighborhoods across the city during the aftermath of immigration enforcement activities. Some detailing how they had weapons pointed at them simply for recording what they saw. Others recounting their experiences being tear gassed or shot with pepper bullets. Significant amounts of surveillance and cell phone video backing these testimonies up were also presented in court.

    SEE ALSO | Judge issues temporary restraining order against DHS for Broadview ICE facility conditions

    The disconnect between both sides could not be more stark, as a Border Patrol supervisor said on the stand he does not consider tear gas dangerous.

    A ruling from Judge Ellis is expected Thursday morning. She could also decide to just extend the TRO as she mulls over a final ruling.

    Thursday’s ruling is expected at 10 a.m., which is before the TRO is set to expire at 11:30 a.m.

    Before court, anti-ICE demonstrators gathered outside of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse ahead of Wednesday morning’s hearing, calling out Bovino and his alleged actions through Operation Midway Blitz.

    They held signs, chanted and held a mock-trial for Bovino.

    Copyright © 2025 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.

    Christian Piekos

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  • DHS Secretary Noem rejects Gov. Pritzker’s calls for pause in immigration operations over Halloween

    CHICAGO (WLS) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited northwest Indiana Thursday, as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker calls on DHS to pause immigration arrests over Halloween weekend.

    ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch

    On Wednesday night, Pritzker sent a letter to Noem, requesting a pause in ICE enforcement this weekend in and around homes, schools, hospitals, parks and places of worship, so children can safely celebrate Halloween.

    The governor referenced an incident in his letter this past weekend in Old Irving Park – in which he says, federal agents reportedly interrupted a children’s Halloween parade and deployed tear gas without warning on residents peacefully celebrating the holiday.

    “Illinois families deserve to spend Halloween weekend without fear. No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick or treating in their own neighborhood,” Governor Pritzker wrote. “Illinois children should not be robbed of their innocence. Let them enjoy a time-honored American tradition safely and peacefully. Please let children be children for one holiday, free from intimidation and fear.”

    Speaking in Gary, Indiana, Noem rejected Governor Pritzker’s request.

    “The fact that Governor Pritzker is asking for that is shameful and I think unfortunate that he doesn’t recognize how important the work is that we do to make sure that we are bringing criminals to justice and bringing them off our streets,” Noem said.

    In response to Governor Pritzker, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin: said in a statement, “Once again Governor Pritzker is going out of his way to smear the law enforcement officers of DHS, who are attempting to clean up the rampant crime he facilitated

    “He is pushing a false narrative that DHS is targeting schools, hospitals, and churches. This is false, he knows this, but he continues to push these lies.

    “Our officers are facing mass assaults, vehicles used as weapons, violence and only use crowd control methods as a last resort when repeated warnings have been given.

    “Those who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear. Elected officials choosing to fearmonger by distorting reality are doing a great disservice to our country and are responsible for the nearly 1,000% increase in assaults and 8,000% increase in violent threats against ICE officers.”

    RELATED | Chicago federal intervention: Tracking surge in immigration enforcement operations | Live updates

    in Gary, Noem spoke about immigrants in the United States illegally getting commercial driver’s licenses.

    “Putting these foreigners in tractor trailers like the ones you see behind me becomes extremely dangerous,” Noem said. “Putting them behind the wheel of these tractor trailers weighing tens of thousands of pounds loaded with explosive fuel down the highway endangers every single citizens that is on our roads.”

    Noem gave update on recent immigration enforcement dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” which Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino called “wildly successful” in an interview with ABC News earlier this week.

    Noem was joined by Indiana Gov. Mike Braun in Gary along with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons, among others.

    SEE ALSO: Court pauses order requiring CBP Chief Bovino to meet with judge daily on immigration operations

    RELATED | Chicago federal intervention: Tracking surge in immigration enforcement operations | Live updates

    Noem’s visit has been met with some criticism, though, from other local northwest Indiana leaders.

    Gary’s Mayor Eddie Melton said his office was not involved with planning the event and is not participating.

    Hammond’s Mayor Thomas McDermott also posted on Facebook, criticizing how the press conference was announced.

    Some protesters gathered in Gary to demonstrate against Noem’s presence.

    Copyright © 2025 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.

    Stephanie Wade

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  • Commentary: Bodies are stacking up in Trump’s deportation deluge. It’s going to get worse

    Like a teenager armed with their first smartphone, President Trump’s masked immigration enforcers love nothing more than to mug for friendly cameras.

    They gladly invite pseudo-filmmakers — some federal government workers, others conservative influencers or pro-Trump reporters — to embed during raids so they can capture every tamale lady agents slam onto the sidewalk, every protester they pelt with pepper balls, every tear gas canister used to clear away pesky activists. From that mayhem comes slickly produced videos that buttress the Trump administration’s claim that everyone involved in the push to boot illegal immigrants from the U.S. is a hero worthy of cinematic love.

    But not everything that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and its sister agencies do shows up in their approved rivers of reels.

    Their propagandists aren’t highlighting the story of Jaime Alanís García, a Mexican farmworker who fell 30 feet to his death in Camarillo this summer while trying to escape one of the largest immigration raids in Southern California in decades.

    They’re not making videos about 39-year-old Ismael Ayala-Uribe, an Orange County resident who moved to this country from Mexico as a 4-year-old and died in a Victorville hospital in September after spending weeks in ICE custody complaining about his health.

    They’re not addressing how ICE raids led to the deaths of Josué Castro Rivera and Carlos Roberto Montoya, Central American nationals run over and killed by highway traffic in Virginia and Monrovia while fleeing in terror. Or what happened to Silverio Villegas González, shot dead in his car as he tried to speed away from two ICE agents in suburban Chicago.

    Those men are just some of the 20-plus people who have died in 2025 while caught up in ICE’s machine — the deadliest year for the agency in two decades, per NPR.

    Publicly, the Department of Homeland Security has described those incidents as “tragic” while assigning blame to everything but itself. For instance, a Homeland Security official told the Associated Press that Castro Rivera’s death was “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” — whatever the hell that means.

    An ICE spokesperson asked for more time to respond to my request for comment, said “Thank you Sir” when I extended my deadline, then never got back to me. Whatever the response would’ve been, Trump’s deportation Leviathan looks like it’s about to get deadlier.

    As reported by my colleagues Andrea Castillo and Rachel Uranga, his administration plans to get rid of more than half of ICE’s field office directors due to grumblings from the White House that the deportations that have swamped large swaths of the United States all year haven’t happened faster and in larger numbers.

    Asked for comment, Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs, described The Times’ questions as “sensationalism” and added “only the media would describe standard agency personnel changes as a ‘massive shakeup.’”

    Agents are becoming more brazen as more of them get hired thanks to billions of dollars in new funds. In Oakland, one fired a chemical round into the face of a Christian pastor from just feet away. In Santa Ana, another pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at activists who had been trailing him from a distance in their car. In the Chicago area, a woman claimed a group of them fired pepper balls at her car even though her two young children were inside.

    La migra knows they can act with impunity because they have the full-throated backing of the White House. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller crowed on Fox News recently, “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.”

    That’s not actually true, but when have facts mattered to this presidency if it gets in the way of its apocalyptic goals?

    Greg Bovino, El Centro Border Patrol sector chief, center, walks with federal agents near an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Ill.

    (Erin Hooley / Associated Press)

    Tasked with turning up the terror dial to 11 is Gregory Bovino, a longtime Border Patrol sector chief based out of El Centro, Calif., who started the year with a raid in Kern County so egregious that a federal judge slammed it as agents “walk[ing] up to people with brown skin and say[ing], ‘Give me your papers.’” A federal judge ordered him to check in with her every day for the foreseeable future after the Border Patrol tear-gassed a neighborhood in a Chicago suburb that was about to host its annual Halloween children’s parade (an appeals court has temporarily blocked the move).

    Bovino now reports directly to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and is expected to pick most of the ICE field office directors from Customs and Border Protection, the arm of the federal government that the Border Patrol belongs to. It logged 180 immigrant deaths under its purview for the 2023 fiscal year, the last year for which stats are publicly available and the third straight year that the number had increased.

    To put someone like Bovino in charge of executing Trump’s deportation plans is like gifting a gas refinery to an arsonist.

    He’s constantly trying to channel the conquering ethos of Wild West, complete with a strutting posse of agents — some with cowboy hats — following him everywhere, white horses trailed by American flags for photo ops and constant shout-outs to “Ma and Pa America” when speaking to the media. When asked by a CBS News reporter recently when his self-titled “Mean Green Machine” would end its Chicago campaign — one that has seen armed troops march through downtown and man boats on the Chicago River like they were patrolling Baghdad — Bovino replied, “When all the illegal aliens [self-deport] and/or we arrest ‘em all.”

    Such scorched-earth jibber-jabber underlines a deportation policy under which the possibility of death for those it pursues is baked into its foundation. ICE plans to hire dozens of healthcare workers — doctors, nurses, psychiatrists — in anticipation of Trump’s plans to build more detention camps, many slated for inhospitable locations like the so-called Alligator Alcatraz camp in the Florida Everglades. That was announced to the world on social media with an AI-generated image of grinning alligators wearing MAGA caps — as if the White House was salivating at the prospect of desperate people trying to escape only to find certain carnage.

    In his CBS News interview, Bovino described the force his team has used in Chicago — where someone was shot and killed, a pastors got hit with pepper balls from high above and the sound of windshields broken by immigration agents looking to snatch someone from their cars is now part of the Windy City’s soundtrack — as “exemplary.” The Border Patrol’s peewee Patton added he felt his guys used “the least amount of force necessary to accomplish the mission. If someone strays into a pepper ball, then that’s on them.”

    One shudders to think what Bovino thinks is excessive for la migra. With his powers now radically expanded, we’re about to find out.

    Gustavo Arellano

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  • ICE officials replaced with Border Patrol, cementing hard tactics that originated in California

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is initiating a leadership shakeup at a dozen or so offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to bring more aggressive enforcement operations across the U.S.

    Some of the outgoing field office directors at ICE are anticipated to be replaced with leaders from Customs and Border Protection, according to news reports. Among the leaders targeted for replacement are Los Angeles Field Office Director Ernesto Santacruz and San Diego Field Office Director Patrick Divver, the Washington Examiner reported Monday.

    The stepped up role of Border Patrol leaders in interior enforcement — which has historically been ICE territory — marks an evolution of tactics that originated in California.

    In late December, Gregory Bovino, who heads the Border Patrol’s El Centro region, led a three-day raid in rural Kern County, nabbing day laborers more than 300 miles from his typical territory. Former Biden administration officials said Bovino had gone “rogue” and that no agency leaders knew about the operation beforehand.

    Bovino leveraged the spectacle to become the on-the-ground point person for the Trump Administration’s signature issue.

    The three-decade veteran of Border Patrol, who has used slick social media videos to promote the agency’s heavy-handed tactics, brought militarized operations once primarily used at the border into America’s largest cities.

    In Los Angeles this summer, contingents of heavily armed, masked agents began chasing down and arresting day laborers, street vendors and car wash workers. Tensions grew as the administration ordered in the National Guard.

    The efforts seem to have become more aggressive after a Supreme Court order allowed authorities to stop people based on factors such as race or ethnicity, employment and speaking Spanish.

    Bovino moved operations to Chicago and escalated his approach. Immigration agents launched an overnight raid in a crowded apartment, shot gas into crowds of protesters and fatally shot one man.

    Now Bovino is expected to hand-pick some of the replacements at ICE field offices, according to Fox News.

    Tom Wong, who directs the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego, said the leadership changes are unsurprising, given Bovino’s strategies in Los Angeles and Chicago.

    “The Trump administration is blurring the distinction between Border Patrol and ICE,” he said. “The border is no longer just the external boundaries of the United States, but the border is everywhere.”

    Former Homeland Security officials said the large-scale replacement of executives from one agency with those from another agency is unprecedented.

    The two agencies have similar authorities but very different approaches, said Daniel Altman, former head of internal oversight investigations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

    ICE officers operate largely inside the country, lean heavily on investigations and typically know when they set out for the day who they are targeting.

    Border Patrol, on the other hand, patrols the borderlands for anyone they encounter and suspect of entering illegally. Amid the rugged terrain and isolation, Border Patrol built a do-it-yourself ethos within the century-old organization, Altman said.

    “Culturally, the Border Patrol prides itself on solving problems, and that means that whatever the current administration needs or wants with respect to immigration enforcement, they’re usually very willing and able to do that,” said Altman.

    White House leadership has not been happy with arrest numbers. Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff who is heading his immigration initiatives, set a goal of 3,000 immigration arrests per day, which the agency has not been able to meet.

    DHS says it expects to deport 600,000 people by January, a figure that includes people who were turned back at the border or at airports.

    Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs secretary for the Homeland Security department, didn’t confirm or deny the changes but described immigration officials as united.

    “Talk about sensationalism,” she said. “Only the media would describe standard agency personnel changes as a ‘massive shakeup.’ If and when we have specific personnel moves to announce, we’ll do that.”

    White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “The President’s entire team is working in lockstep to implement the President’s policy agenda, and the tremendous results from securing the border to deporting criminal illegal aliens speak for themselves.”

    On Fox News on Tuesday, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said the administration is dedicated to achieving record deportations of primarily immigrants with criminal records.

    “As far as personnel changes, that’s under the purview of the Secretary of Homeland Security,” he said. “I’m at the White House working with people like Stephen Miller, one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, to come up with strategic policies and plans — how to get success, how to maintain success, and how to get the numbers ever higher.”

    Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE and DHS official under the Biden administration, said the personnel moves appear to be an “attempt to migrate a Border Patrol ethos over to ICE.”

    “ICE’s job has historically focused on targeting and enforcing against public safety threats,” she said. “Border Patrol has a much more highly militarized job of securing the border, protecting against transnational crime and drug trafficking and smuggling. That sort of approach doesn’t belong in our cities and is quite dangerous.”

    Fleischaker said it would be difficult to increase deportations, even with Border Patrol leaders at the helm, because of the complexities around securing travel documents and negotiating with countries that are reticent to accept deportees.

    In the meantime, she said, shunting well-liked leaders will sink morale.

    “For the folks who are still there, everybody knows you comply or you risk losing your job,” she said. “Dissent, failure to meet targets or even ask questions aren’t really tolerated.”

    On Tuesday, DHS posted a video montage of Bovino on its Instagram page set to Coldplay’s song “Viva la vida.” The caption read, “WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED.”

    Staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

    Andrea Castillo, Rachel Uranga

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  • U.S. attorney said she was fired after telling Border Patrol to follow a court order

    The acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento has said she was fired after telling the Border Patrol chief in charge of immigration raids in California that his agents were not allowed to arrest people without probable cause in the Central Valley.

    Michele Beckwith, a career prosecutor who was made the acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of California earlier this year, told the New York Times that she was let go after she warned Gregory Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, that a court injunction blocked him from carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in Sacramento.

    Beckwith did not respond to a request for comment from the L.A. Times, but told the New York Times that “we have to stand up and insist the laws be followed.”

    The U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

    Bovino presided over a series of raids in Los Angeles starting in June in which agents spent weeks pursuing Latino-looking workers outside of Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and other areas. The agents often wore masks and used unmarked vehicles.

    But such indiscriminate tactics were not allowed in California’s Eastern District after the American Civil Liberties Union and United Farm Workers filed suit against the Border Patrol earlier in the year and won an injunction.

    The suit followed a January operation in Kern County called “Operation Return to Sender,” in which agents swarmed a Home Depot and Latino market, among other areas frequented by laborers. In April, a federal district court judge ruled that the Border Patrol likely violated the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

    As Beckwith described it to New York Times reporters, she received a phone call from Bovino on July 14 in which he said he was bringing agents to Sacramento.

    She said she told him that the injunction filed after the Kern County raid meant he could not stop people indiscriminately in the Eastern District. The next day, she wrote him an email in which, as quoted in the New York Times, she stressed the need for “compliance with court orders and the Constitution.”

    Shortly thereafter her work cell phone and her work computer stopped working. A bit before 5 p.m. she received an email informing her that her employment was being terminated effective immediately.

    It was the end of a 15-year career in in the Department of Justice in which she had served as the office’s Criminal Division Chief and First Assistant and prosecuted members of the Aryan Brotherhood, suspected terrorists, and fentanyl traffickers.

    Two days later on July 17, Bovino and his agents moved into Sacramento, conducting a raid at a Home Depot south of downtown.

    In an interview with Fox News that day, Bovino said the raids were targeted and based on intelligence. “Everything we do is targeted,” he said. “We did have prior intelligence that there were targets that we were interested in and around that Home Depot, as well as other targeted enforcement packages in and around the Sacramento area.”

    He also said that his operations would not slow down. “There is no sanctuary anywhere,” he said. “We’re here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to affect this mission and secure the homeland.”

    Beckwith is one of a number of top prosecutors who have quit or been fired as the Trump administration pushes the Department of Justice to aggressively carry out his policies, including investigating people who have been the president’s political targets.

    In March, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles was fired after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed officials in Washington to drop all charges against him, according to multiple sources.

    In July, Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was fired by the Trump administration, according to the New York Times.

    And just last week, a U. S. attorney in Virginia was pushed out after he had determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute James B. Comey. A new prosecutor this week won a grand jury indictment against Comey on one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

    Jessica Garrison

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  • Fighting intensifies over California bill that tries to ban immigration officers from wearing masks

    As California faces a deadline Friday to pass new laws for the year, police groups in the state are turning up pressure against a bill that attempts to ban law enforcement at nearly every level in California from wearing face coverings in most situations. The bill, SB 627, was filed by two Democratic state senators in response to images of federal immigration raids in which officers have been seen wearing masks. The state legislation attempts to enforce the ban against federal officers, which critics say is not legally possible. Police groups, including the Peace Officers Research Association of California and the California Police Chiefs Association, on Monday warned that the bill was recently changed to take away qualified immunity, or the legal protections provided to police under state law, from officers who “knowingly and willfully” violate the ban. In a letter sent to all state lawmakers and Gov. Newsom’s office on Monday, PORAC warned it could push officers to second-guess themselves and potentially put public safety at risk. “Without these protections, an officer would potentially be subject to civil suits against them personally for actions they took in good faith and based on information available at the time. For example, if an officer acting in good faith and based on current information arrests the wrong person, they are given immunity from being sued personally. Any erosion of existing immunity protections strikes at the core protections necessary for officers to operate safely and securely in California,” PORAC officials wrote. The bill was also recently changed to exempt the California Highway Patrol from the measure. Opponents said the legislation will end up solely punishing local law enforcement agencies for the actions of federal officers. “It’s not local law enforcement that’s engaging in those tactics,” said Jason Salazar, the President of the California Police Chiefs Association. “Our officers are following the law through good law enforcement and trying to provide public safety to our communities. This bill makes it harder to do that.” “As long as law enforcement are following the law and the policies set by their departments, they’ll have nothing to worry about under SB 627,” said State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who wrote the proposal. “California has terrific law enforcement who are more than capable of following the policies set by their supervisors—all we’re asking is that they do so with regard to the extreme masking ICE and others have begun to deploy in recent months.” “They can pass all the laws they want. It’s more wishful thinking than an actual law,” U.S. Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector Chief, Gregory Bovino, told KCRA 3’s Ashley Zavala in a recent interview. Bovino said there has been a 1000% increase in federal officer assaults. “Whether they’re being doxxed or followed or whatever, I’m going to protect those agents, and face coverings make sense,” Bovino said. California’s U.S. Senator Alex Padilla has filed a proposal that would require federal immigration authorities to display legible identification during public-facing operations. It has been referred to the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

    As California faces a deadline Friday to pass new laws for the year, police groups in the state are turning up pressure against a bill that attempts to ban law enforcement at nearly every level in California from wearing face coverings in most situations.

    The bill, SB 627, was filed by two Democratic state senators in response to images of federal immigration raids in which officers have been seen wearing masks. The state legislation attempts to enforce the ban against federal officers, which critics say is not legally possible.

    Police groups, including the Peace Officers Research Association of California and the California Police Chiefs Association, on Monday warned that the bill was recently changed to take away qualified immunity, or the legal protections provided to police under state law, from officers who “knowingly and willfully” violate the ban.

    In a letter sent to all state lawmakers and Gov. Newsom’s office on Monday, PORAC warned it could push officers to second-guess themselves and potentially put public safety at risk.

    “Without these protections, an officer would potentially be subject to civil suits against them personally for actions they took in good faith and based on information available at the time. For example, if an officer acting in good faith and based on current information arrests the wrong person, they are given immunity from being sued personally. Any erosion of existing immunity protections strikes at the core protections necessary for officers to operate safely and securely in California,” PORAC officials wrote.

    The bill was also recently changed to exempt the California Highway Patrol from the measure. Opponents said the legislation will end up solely punishing local law enforcement agencies for the actions of federal officers.

    “It’s not local law enforcement that’s engaging in those tactics,” said Jason Salazar, the President of the California Police Chiefs Association. “Our officers are following the law through good law enforcement and trying to provide public safety to our communities. This bill makes it harder to do that.”

    “As long as law enforcement are following the law and the policies set by their departments, they’ll have nothing to worry about under SB 627,” said State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who wrote the proposal. “California has terrific law enforcement who are more than capable of following the policies set by their supervisors—all we’re asking is that they do so with regard to the extreme masking ICE and others have begun to deploy in recent months.”

    “They can pass all the laws they want. It’s more wishful thinking than an actual law,” U.S. Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector Chief, Gregory Bovino, told KCRA 3’s Ashley Zavala in a recent interview. Bovino said there has been a 1000% increase in federal officer assaults.

    “Whether they’re being doxxed or followed or whatever, I’m going to protect those agents, and face coverings make sense,” Bovino said.

    California’s U.S. Senator Alex Padilla has filed a proposal that would require federal immigration authorities to display legible identification during public-facing operations. It has been referred to the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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