Operation Midway Blitz Lawsuit: Rulings, Appeal, and Tort Claims

Three main lawsuits came out of Operation Midway Blitz, the federal immigration enforcement campaign that ran in the Chicago area starting September 8, 2025: a First Amendment case brought by journalists, protesters, and clergy against DHS; a Tenth Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act case brought by the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago; and a set of Federal Tort Claims Act claims filed by residents of a South Shore apartment building raided during the operation. The protesters’ case has been closed and its injunction vacated on appeal. The Illinois and Chicago case is still pending. The tort claims are awaiting the government’s response.

What Operation Midway Blitz Was

DHS announced the operation on September 8, 2025, describing it as an effort to “target criminal illegal aliens terrorizing Americans in Sanctuary Illinois.”¹ It involved ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Border Patrol agents, with field operations led by Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino.²

Government records analyzed by the Chicago Tribune showed 3,790 bookings between September 8 and November 10, 2025, with an additional 130 detentions during a three-day surge in December. At least 2,479 people were deported during the main phase. Sixty percent of those detained had no criminal record, and only 15 percent had any criminal conviction.³ Those figures, along with the tactics agents used at protests, in neighborhoods, and inside residences, form the factual backbone of the litigation that followed.

Chicago Headline Club v. Noem: The Protesters and Journalists Case

On October 6, 2025, a coalition of journalists, media organizations, protesters, and clergy sued DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Case No. 25-cv-12173). The organizational plaintiffs included the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago, the Chicago Newspaper Guild, and the Illinois Press Association, joined by individual journalists and protesters.⁴

The complaint alleged that federal agents had fired pepper balls and rubber bullets at identified journalists, thrown flashbang grenades into peaceful crowds, tackled protesters, and deployed tear gas without warning at the Broadview ICE facility and elsewhere. Plaintiffs reported being shot in the face, hand, and groin, and hearing loss from the grenades. The suit asserted First Amendment violations and sought an injunction against further use of force.⁵

Judge Ellis’s Rulings

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis granted a temporary restraining order on October 9, 2025, and modified it on October 16 to require federal agents to wear body cameras. On October 28, she amended the order again to prohibit tear gas and required Commander Bovino to appear in court every weekday at 5:45 p.m. to report on use-of-force incidents.⁶

Bovino became a central figure. Judge Ellis found he had engaged in “outright lying” about his conduct, most notably his claim that a rock had struck his head before he deployed tear gas at protesters in Little Village on October 23, 2025. Video contradicted him, and he admitted under oath that the rock did not hit his helmet until after he had thrown the canister, without any warning.⁷ At Broadview, video showed Bovino tackling a man though he had testified he “never used force.”⁸

On November 6, 2025, Judge Ellis granted a preliminary injunction and certified a plaintiff class. The order restricted agents from using tear gas, pepper balls, rubber bullets, flashbang grenades, and tasers unless protesters posed an immediate threat, required at least two audible warnings, prohibited chokeholds absent absolute necessity, and required agents to display identifying badge numbers in two places on their uniforms.⁹ Her 233-page opinion said the government’s use of force against peaceful protesters “shocks the conscience,” called administration testimony “simply not credible,” and found that body-camera footage the government submitted supported the plaintiffs rather than the defendants.¹⁰

The Seventh Circuit and the End of the Case

The Seventh Circuit intervened repeatedly. On October 29, 2025, it administratively stayed the order requiring Bovino’s daily court appearances and later issued a writ of mandamus, ruling that the order had cast the district court as an “inquisitor rather than a neutral adjudicator” and as “a supervisor of Chief Bovino’s activities, intruding into personnel management decisions of the Executive Branch.”¹¹

On November 20, 2025, a panel stayed the preliminary injunction itself, calling it “overbroad” and “constitutionally suspect” and finding that mandating judicial review of internal law enforcement policies “impermissibly infringes on principles of separation of powers.”¹²

The plaintiffs moved to dismiss with prejudice on December 2, 2025, arguing the operation had ended and the relevant agents had left. The DOJ resisted a with-prejudice dismissal, with attorney Elizabeth Hedges saying the administration was not “committing one way or the other on the future” of enforcement in Chicago.¹³ On January 22, 2026, Judge Ellis dismissed the case without prejudice and decertified the class.¹⁴

Then, on March 5, 2026, a Seventh Circuit panel of Chief Judge Brennan and Circuit Judges Easterbrook and Scudder dismissed the government’s appeal and vacated Judge Ellis’s preliminary injunction and factfinding entirely. The majority reasoned that leaving the injunction intact could produce a “procedural windfall” by letting future litigants rely on Ellis’s findings. Judge Easterbrook dissented, arguing the court lacked authority to vacate because all parties had “abandoned the field of battle” and the litigation was moot.¹⁵ The Headline Club case is now closed, with none of Judge Ellis’s findings legally standing.

Illinois and Chicago v. DHS: The State and City Case

On January 12, 2026, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the City of Chicago filed a 103-page federal lawsuit against DHS, ICE, CBP, Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE Director Todd Lyons, Commander Bovino, and other officials (Case No. 26-cv-321).¹⁶ The complaint alleged violations of the Tenth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, describing the federal agents’ conduct as an “assault” on state sovereignty designed to coerce Illinois and Chicago into abandoning their sanctuary policies.¹⁷

The suit challenges seven categories of federal conduct:

Roving patrols in which agents questioned residents about citizenship without reasonable suspicion.
Warrantless arrests without probable cause or individualized assessment.
Deployment of riot-control weapons in residential areas, injuring bystanders including children, the elderly, and local police officers.
Enforcement at sensitive locations, including courthouses, schools, medical facilities, and social service organizations.
Capture and retention of residents’ biometric data without authorization.
Trespass onto private and city property without warrants.
Concealment of vehicle license plates to avoid accountability.

The complaint also cited the killing of one person by ICE agents during a traffic stop and the shooting of another during the operation.¹⁸ The plaintiffs are seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, court-monitored compliance, restrictions on the use of force, a ban on enforcement near sensitive locations, and a requirement that federal vehicles display accurate license plates.¹⁹

On January 15, 2026, Judge Ellis ruled that the new case was related to the Headline Club litigation and would remain with her.²⁰ The court modified the protective order from the earlier case so Illinois and Chicago could access discovery materials, including body-camera footage and use-of-force reports. The defendants have filed a motion to dismiss, with a hearing scheduled for July 30, 2026.²¹

South Shore Federal Tort Claims

The third legal front involves residents of an apartment building at 7500 S. South Shore Drive that was raided by roughly 300 federal agents around midnight on September 30, 2025. Residents said agents used a Black Hawk helicopter, unmarked vans, and rented moving trucks, broke down doors without presenting warrants, held adults and children at gunpoint, pulled people from their beds, and zip-tied family members. Some claimants said they were struck with rifles or bitten by police dogs.²² DHS said the operation was in “full compliance of the law” and that agents had arrested two members of a foreign terrorist organization.²³

On May 12, 2026, eighteen of those residents filed administrative claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a required step before suing the federal government. The filings were coordinated by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the MacArthur Justice Center, and the National Immigrant Justice Center.²⁴ Each claimant is seeking approximately $5 million in compensatory damages for emotional distress, lost wages, and loss of personal property.²² Under the FTCA, the government has six months to investigate and respond before the claimants can proceed to federal court.²³

A Related Case on Detention Conditions

Separately from the three main lawsuits, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman issued a temporary restraining order on November 5, 2025, in a case brought by the MacArthur Justice Center and the ACLU of Illinois over conditions at the Broadview ICE processing facility. He found conditions “unacceptable” and “unnecessarily cruel,” citing detainees crammed into holding rooms, sleeping on concrete floors, denied showers or clean clothes for days, and given only cold sandwiches, while being pressured to sign voluntary deportation documents without access to attorneys.²⁵ His order required ICE to provide bedding, hygiene supplies, three meals daily, and private phone access to lawyers.²⁶

Where Things Stand

The Headline Club case is closed, and none of Judge Ellis’s findings survive after the Seventh Circuit’s March 5, 2026 vacatur. The Illinois and Chicago case is active, with a ruling on the government’s motion to dismiss expected after the July 30, 2026 hearing. The South Shore FTCA claims are awaiting the government’s six-month response window. No injunction currently restricts federal agents’ conduct in the Chicago area. Federal agents returned to Chicago for renewed raids in December 2025, and the DOJ has not ruled out further operations.¹³

1
DHS. ICE Launches Operation Midway Blitz
2
ICE. ICE Continues Efforts to Remove Criminal Illegal Aliens
3
Chicago Tribune. Operation Midway Blitz in Charts: Roughly 3,800 Detained and 2,500 Deported
4
Loevy & Loevy. Broadview Complaint
5
Chicago Headline Club. Chicago Headline Club Joins Legal Fight to Defend Journalists at Broadview ICE Facility
6
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Chicago Headline Club v. Noem
7
ABC News. Border Patrol Commander Admitted He Lied About Tear Gas Incident
8
WTTW News. Federal Judge Says Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino Lied
9
IPM Newsroom. 7th Circuit Stays Judge’s Order Restricting Immigration Agents’ Use of Riot Control Weapons
10
Loevy & Loevy. Federal Judge Writes the Book on Operation Midway Blitz
11
Courthouse News. Seventh Circuit Strikes Down Border Patrol Bovino’s Daily Report Requirement
12
CBS News Chicago. 7th Circuit Appeals Court Stays Injunction on Immigration Agents’ Use of Force
13
Capitol News Illinois. DOJ Lawyer Says It’s Wrong to Allege Operation Midway Blitz Is Over
14
Bloomberg Tax. Protesters ICE Use of Force Lawsuit Dismissed at Their Request
15
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, No. 25-3023
16
Illinois Attorney General. Attorney General Raoul Files Lawsuit Against Trump Administration
17
WTTW News. Illinois, Chicago Sue Trump Administration Over Illegal Immigration Enforcement Tactics
18
Fox 32 Chicago. Chicago, Illinois Sue DHS Over Immigration
19
Illinois Attorney General. State of Illinois v. DHS Complaint
20
Chicago Tribune. Judge Who Blasted Operation Midway Blitz Use of Force Tactics Will Hear New Lawsuit by City, State
21
CourtListener. State of Illinois v. Department of Homeland Security
22
Chicago Tribune. South Shore Immigration Raids Tort Claim
23
CBS News Chicago. South Shore Apartment Building Military-Style Immigration Raid Tort Claim
24
MALDEF. Eighteen Chicago Residents Brutalized by Federal Agents File Legal Claims
25
WTTW News. Federal Judge Orders Broadview ICE Detention Center to Improve Conditions
26
NPR Illinois. Judge Orders ICE to Clean Up Conditions in Broadview Facility