President Donald Trump scored a legal victory on Friday, as a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit permanently blocked a lower court order requiring Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino to report daily on his operations.
The controversy stems from Border Patrol's violent crackdowns on protesters in Chicago, who are resisting the Trump administration's immigration raids. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued an order prohibiting Department of Homeland Security officials from using riot control weapons “on members of the press, protestors, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.”
But after the confrontations escalated, Ellis accused Bovino and Border Patrol officers of violating the order and demanded that Bovino make daily reports to the court to determine compliance.
The Trump administration appealed, asserting the court had no authority to place the Border Patrol chief under such supervision — and an anonymous panel of the Seventh Circuit issued an order agreeing.
"While this litigation presents very challenging circumstances, the district court’s order has two principal failings," said the order. "First, it puts the court in the position of an inquisitor rather than that of a neutral adjudicator of the parties’ adversarial presentations. Second, it sets the court up as a supervisor of Chief Bovino’s activities, intruding into personnel management decisions of the Executive Branch. These two problems are related and lead us to conclude that the order infringes on the separation of powers. Review by appeal at the end of the case would not solve the problems created in the interim, which justifies review by a prerogative writ."
The clashes between protesters and federal agents in Chicago, which also come as Trump seeks to mobilize the National Guard there, have led to a number of controversial incidents, including one in which a pastor praying outside an immigration facility was shot in the head with a pepper ball.