A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a top U.S. Border Patrol official to appear in court daily to give her updates about immigration operations in Chicago, eliciting pushback from conservative legal experts who say she is overstepping the authority of the court to tell the executive branch how to operate.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino to report to her daily at 6 p.m. until a preliminary injunction hearing on Nov. 5, “to hear about how the day went” regarding immigration enforcement operations in the area, per the Associated Press. Ellis issued the order while Bovino was questioned by the judge over officers’ use of force during “Operation Midway Blitz.”
The federal judge’s unusual request came weeks after she ordered federal immigration officers in Chicago to wear bodycameras and issued multiple temporary restraining orders aimed at restricting the use of certain riot control tactics, including the use of tear gas. Ellis grilled Bovino on his officers’ compliance with those orders in the courtroom Tuesday.
“My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress,” Ellis said during the hearing. “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.”
While conservative legal experts questioned Ellis’s order requiring bodycameras, they were outraged over her order mandating daily briefings on immigration operations. Mike Davis, founder of the conservative legal Article III Project, called the order “outrageous” and said the judge overstepped her authority over Bovino.
“This is a clear violation of the separation of powers for this Obama judge in Chicago to order a senior immigration official to report to her courtroom like this. The Trump Justice Department must immediately appeal this clearly lawless and dangerous order,” Davis said.
Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan warned that such action by Ellis runs the risk of encroaching on the constitutionally established separation of powers between the executive branch and the judiciary.
“At the core of our constitutional system lies a vital principle; that the executive branch is charged with faithfully executing the laws. Intrusive oversight, including daily reporting by a senior immigration enforcement official, risks encroaching on the appropriate checks and balances between the branches,” Wessan told the Washington Examiner.
Other conservative legal experts said the Justice Department could seek aggressive action against the judge.
Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor, said he expects the order “will be the subject of a writ of mandamus” filed by the Justice Department.
A writ of mandamus is when a higher court issues an order to a lower court to correct an abuse of discretion or to compel a lower court judge to fulfill his or her official duty. In this instance, the petition from the Justice Department would likely ask an appeals court to strike Ellis’s order mandating that the leader of Border Patrol appear in person to provide her daily oversight of federal immigration operations.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Bovino said he would follow the court’s order regarding the meetings. Ellis also requested all use-of-force reports going back to Sept. 2 as part of federal immigration operations in Chicago, as she continues to grill federal officials over their handling of operations in the city.
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The lawsuit at the center of Tuesday’s hearing is one of two aimed at the Trump administration’s federal operations in Chicago. In another lawsuit, filed by the state of Illinois, President Donald Trump’s federalization and deployment of the National Guard to protect federal assets and officials is under scrutiny.
A federal district court blocked the National Guard deployment, an order which was upheld by a federal appeals court, leading the Trump administration to appeal the injunction to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. Because the emergency case has been fully briefed, the Supreme Court could issue a ruling on the emergency petition at any time.
