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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress. \u2026 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,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
Bovino is chief of the Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, one of nine sectors on the Mexican border.<\/p>\n
The judge wants him to meet her in person daily at 6 p.m. \u201cto hear about how the day went.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI suspect, that now knowing where we are and that he understands what I expect, I don\u2019t know that we\u2019re going to see a whole lot of tear gas deployed in the next week,\u201d Ellis said.<\/p>\n
Ellis zeroed in on reports that Border Patrol agents disrupted a children\u2019s Halloween parade with tear gas on the city\u2019s Northwest Side over the weekend. Neighbors had gathered in the street as someone was arrested.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose kids were tear-gassed on their way to celebrate Halloween in their local school parking lot,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cAnd I can only imagine how terrified they were. These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday. And it\u2019s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cphysically impossible\u201d because of the \u201csheer amount.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Besides his court appearance, Bovino still must sit for a deposition, an interview in private, with lawyers from both sides.<\/p>\n
The judge has already ordered agents to wear badges, and she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Ellis set a Friday deadline for Bovino to get a camera and to complete training.<\/p>\n
Attorneys representing a coalition of news outlets and protesters claim he violated the judge\u2019s use-of-force order in Little Village, a Mexican enclave in Chicago, and they filed an image of him allegedly \u201cthrowing tear gas into a crowd without justification.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, masked agents and unmarked SUVs were seen on Chicago\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ellis quickly expressed concerns about video and other images from an illegal immigration drive that has produced more…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":338888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[2064,48719,960,57,5386,1818,409,80,402,61,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-338887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-border-security","9":"tag-chemical-weapons","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","17":"tag-u-s-news","18":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}