This section of the filing caught the attention of Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, who said it appeared federal immigration officials are straightforwardly violating the First Amendment right to peacefully protest.
“ It’ s impossible to overstate how much of what ICE is doing on the ground reflects this completely preposterous conflation of hostile speech and hostile conduct,” he wrote in a post on Bluesky.“ The First Amendment protects— or, at least, is supposed to protect— the former up and until it’ s a‘ true threat,’ which none of this is.”
Elsewhere in the filing, the plaintiffs’ attorneys alleged that Bovino said during testimony that he had“ interacted with many violent rioters and individuals” at the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, which in recent weeks has become the focal point of local protests. Additionally, the attorneys wrote, Bovino would“ not admit he has ever seen protesters who were not violent rioters.”
The attorneys commented that“ by Bovino’ s logic, anyone who shows up to protest is presumptively violent or assaultive and he can‘ go hard’ against them.”
The case involving the Chicago media organizations and federal immigration enforcement officials is currently being overseen by US District Court Judge Sara Ellis, who last month issued a temporary restraining order that barred federal officers 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.”
Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.
34 x The Trial Lawyer