Seventh Circuit Panel Allows Trump To Assault Chicago Residents
On November 6 District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from attacking Chicago residents engaged in lawful protests. Judge Ellis also certified a class for this litigation. It consists of
All persons who are or will in the future non-violently
demonstrate, protest, observe, document, or record at Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement.
The defendants sought a stay pending appeal. On November 19, a panel consisting of Michael Brennan, Frank Easterbrook, and Michael Scudder complied, freeing Trump’s goons to attack us without restraint.
The facts of the case are well known. Masked thugs are caught on camera shoving protesters to the ground and zip-tying them, shooting people with pepper balls, teargassing kids, holding people for hours without charges, and much much more. The evidence is set out in a detailed and very long Opinion and Order entered by Judge Ellis on November 20.
The legal standards for issuance of a preliminary injunction are also well known, at least they used to be before John Roberts and the Fash Five held that Donald Trump cannot be held accountable for breaking the law or violating the Constitution in Trump v. US and then drastically slashed the power of the judiciary to restrain law-breakingl in Trump v. CASA.
The Seventh Circuit Rationale
The panel says that the defendants are likely to succeed on the merits.
A. The order is overbroad
1. The Injunction binds the named defendants, their lawyers and people acting in concert with the defendants. Too broad?
That’s simply absurd. Of course the order binds the defendants and those acting for or in concert with them. They were duly served. They engaged in motion practice, participated in discovery, and appeared at the hearing. They had a full opportunity to be heard. They were found to have violated the constitutional rights of the class members. Perhaps in the future, these three can explain exactly why defendants shouldn’t be enjoined from breaking the law.
2. The panel coplains that the Injunction requires “… the enjoined parties to submit for judicial review all current and future internal guidance, policies, and directives regarding efforts to implement the order….”
No it doesn’t. Here’s the relevant section:
6. It is further ORDERED that Defendants shall issue guidance to officers and agents to implement this Order. Defendants shall file with this Court such guidance and any directives, policies, or regulations implementing the guidance within 5 business days of issuance of the Order, with a continuing obligation to immediately file with this Court any subsequent changes or revisions to that guidance or implementing directives, policies, or regulations through the period of this Order.
This doesn’t call for judicial review. It prevents the defendants from hiding their non-compliance from the attorneys for the class members.
3. The order is too “prescriptive”. “For example, it enumerates and proscribes the use of scores of riot control weapons and other devices in a way that resembles a federal regulation.”
Apparently the panel didn’t realize the extent of the duplicity of the defendants and their lawyers who routinely claim innocence because an order is not precise. For example, the head of the Customs and Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, wrangled with Judge Ellis in open court about the number and location of identifying marks on the costumes of his agents.
Or perhaps the panel thinks one or more of the identified weapons is just fine. Here’s a short list of some of them from §1,c if the Injunction:
… kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), Compressed Air Launchers (e.g., PLS and FN303), Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray, CS gas, CN gas, or other chemical irritants, 40 mm Munitions Launchers, less-lethal shotguns, Less-Lethal Specialty Impact-Chemical Munitions (LLSI-CM), Controlled Noise and Light Distraction Devices (CNLDDs), Electronic Control Weapons (ECWs)
B. Standing
The panel says the class members have no reason to fear imminent future harm. They should just wait around and see if any federal agents beat them senseless or tear gas their eighborhood. The panel says they know from media accounts that Bovino and his goon squad are gone, so why worry? Perhaps they missed the media reports of violations of the Injunction by defendants within a week of issuance.
Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are accused of firing pepper balls at moving vehicles, deploying tear gas and flash bangs in Little Village [a heavily Hispanic neighborhood] and exposing a 1-year-old and her family to chemical munitions as they traveled to a local warehouse store {they shot chemical weapons through the window of the care with the child in the back seat.].
But sure, this insane suggestion is warranted.
C. Irreparable harm to defendants.
The panel quotes this obscene sentence from Trump v. CASA: “Any time that the Government is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.” Does this authorize Trump’s goons to violate people’s Constitutional rights as long as they claim to be enforcing a statute? Apparently these judges think if Trump claims to be enforcing the law, it’s a terrible harm to, I don’t know, maybe government agents, if they can’t violate our constitutional rights.
D. But maybe they’ll issue their own order
The panel assures us that maybe some day they’ll read the record and think up their own order. They ignore the massive effort put in by Judge Ellis and her staff (special shout-out to her clerks and office staff for the clear and coherent opinions and orders, since the panel just dismissed all of their work.)
I know I speak for the toddlers and families in Little Village, Belmont-Cragin, Albany Park and the rest of my beautiful city when I say how grateful we are for their willingness to at least consider protecting us from chemical attack.
The Bigger Picture
Now Bovino and his goon squad have moved on to Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, and other Democratic cities in North Carolina. They’re using the same tactics. One of the incidents in this story is a Kavanaugh Stop: “… an agent smashed in the window of a US citizen’s truck and the man, who is Hispanic, was temporarily detained.” This is a clear example of the indifference of the judiciary to individual Constitutional rights under the rules set by John Roberts and the other anti-democratic members of SCOTUS.
The only rights the SCOTUS majority will protect are those of the Imperial President.
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Update: I had a suspicion that the panel just typed up a couple of sentences from the defendant’s’ motion. Here’s a link to the 24 page motion and a very long appendix. The brief is signed by Brett Shumate and Yaakov Roth, among others, from DoJ. These guys think they are free to assault my neighbors with no restraints. The ugly tone of this motion is, to my perhaps prejudiced eye, mirrored by the ugly tone of the panel.
Two side notes.
1. I did not check to see who appointed these three judges. It doesn’t matter. What matters is their indifference to the harm to my neighbors.
2. That obscene sentence was penned by John Roberts and quoted approvingly by the intellectually weak Amy Coney Barrett.
I know I’ve posted this before, but I’m thinking of snail-mailing this to every Federal judge I can find as a form of activism:
https ://www.unchartedblue.com/monkey-with-a-gun-the-donald-trump-story/
Two Trumpers and Easterbrook.
Regarding 2 (and C): that’s the kind of sentence that sounds great for rousing the rabble, but falls apart under examination. How exactly is this government injured when a different part of that same government enjoins an action? How does that injury to the government compare to pepper balls and tear-gas canisters to the heads of the citizens that make up that government?··
If that sentence were true, it would mean there is never a time that the government should be enjoined, as long as it can claim it is “effectuating statutes”. It ignores the possibility of improper/misinterpreted legislative or executive actions.
It appears when John Roberts says “the government “ he means the president.
…a principle he’s clung to ever since being hired as minor young White House aide in the Reagan administration.
Puhhhlllllleeeeeezzzzzzeee – UNITARY EXECUTIVE John Roberts!
En banc might get a better reasoned result. We saw something similar in the 9th CA where the selection was poor and the ruling poorly reasoned.
Ed, I’m also a Chicagoan. I appreciate your moral clarity.
Judge Ellis’ decision is a must read. She thoroughly explained the government’s abominable behavior on our streets and in the courtroom. It’s disgusting that these judges disregarded her findings.
Easterbrook of course is a Reagan appointee. The other two are Trump appointments. And those Trump appointments filled the roles previously held by Posner and Evans.
When will the presumpion of regularity be lost at the appellate level, because most district court judges seem to be considering it frayed if not gone.
I’m not sure some of these circuits are even aware of what’s actually going on – they see the news, maybe, and assume that it’s telling the truth. At this point, I don’t believe anything coming out of DHS/ICE/CBP or SCOTUS, and the 5th circuit is barely in the real US.
I thought Appellate Courts have a duty to know,
ie: familiarize themselves with the actual factual
record found and described by the District Courts.
Note that Judge Ellis only provided her detailed (233-page) rationale on Nov 20, the day after the 7th Cct ruling. The Nov 6 order was focused on class certification. An odd posture.
Arguably, the submission of unreliable evidence by the government found by the district judge puts the government on the wrong side of the clean hands doctrine and ineligible for the relief the circuit court provided.
Judge Ellis made oral findings of fact at the end of the hearing on the preliminary injunction. Pulling the written order together took a while. The panel seems to have been concerned about the compressed time frame, but that’s not Ellis’ fault. it’s the DoJ that is creating the time pressure.
The appellate courts have in the past operated on the assumption that the district courts are competent. That’s just one more old-timey rule the six rogue members of SCOTUS ripped out o the law books.
Ed Walker–to be fair, there are a number of district judges who have proven themselves incompetent by design, c.f. Kacsmaryk and Cannon.
Thank you Ed for another heart-felt post. You are obviously very upset about Trump’s actions towards Chicago. So am I. My beautiful talented daughter lives and works in Chicago. The thought of Trump’s thugs doing anything that may impact her makes me furious. These actions are completely unnecessary and antithetical to the America I grew up in. Besides, even 10,000 soldiers is a pittance to try to “control” a city the size of Chicago. It is huge geographically and in terms of population in the surrounding suburbs and exurbs. That number of troops couldn’t control more than a fraction of the city – and to what end?? This is a dick-wagging exercise by a small and psychologically broken, demented old man.
I commented elsewhere by snarking, but reality-based comments are also useful. You provide a helpful reminder that 10,000 troops isn’t enough to control a city the size of Chicago even if the rules of engagement allowed unrestricted warfare. These fascists are as incompetent as they are evil.
I remember Google Map images from the early days of the LA deployment showing Metro Los Angeles and the TINY spec where protests and demonstrations were taking place. I haven’t seen a Chicago version, but I imagine it’s just about as ludicrous.
The goons have been seen all over the city, at least once in almost every neighborhood, except, I think Streeterville and the Gold Coast, two areas on the north side of the central business district. They even took a boat ride on the Chicago River past the very dangerous wine bars and fishers.
They showed up at least once in the very affluent Lincoln Park neighborhood, prompting a large group of neighbors to gather at Lincoln Park High School armed with whistles. There are videos from Rogers Park that are just infuriating.
I’m sure none of the panel members will be exposed to any of the weapons. They’re safe behind a wall of black robes and security forces.
Evidently not in Rhode Island:
“Superior Court Judge Forced To Intervene After ICE Wrongfully Detains Superior Court Intern
The ICE-holes threatened to smash the judge’s car windows.”
https://crooksandliars.com/2025/11/judge-forced-intervene-after-ice
ICE was in the Gold Coast too – recall that one of the first days they were spotted in the city, they marched north from the Millenium Park area up Michigan Avenue, then continued up Clark Street into the Gold Coast.
“This is a dick-wagging exercise by a small and psychologically broken, demented old man.”
Yes, it is. An small old man who is getting visibly smaller, more psychologically broken, and increasingly demented by the day. A small, psychologically broken, demented old man who is now starting to realize the peak of his influence, of his power, has passed.
That doesn’t mean he is less dangerous, or that the damage he will still cause is more limited. Indeed, the realization of his waning power, of how his hold on his underlings (and his crazed, MTG-like base) is loosening, makes more extreme, more demented, more damaging action increasingly likely (wagging-the-dog anyone?).
Yet, this is the week he became, not just a true lame duck, but Lame Dic Don. The sheer volume of authoritarian proclamations and orders—his dictates—means he’s been doing his best to govern as a dictator all along. But that works only as long as people fear you enough to act as your agents taking dictation. Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, Bove, Blanche, Walker, Pirro, Halligan, Bovino…all taking dictation.
Do you know who’s never taken dictation? OMB Director Russell Vought & Race Czar Stephen Miller and, less importantly, crazy HHS Sec RFK Jr. —all three are Obsessives with a Life-Long Holy Mission who, like Bill Barr before them, have always single-mindedly pursued their own goals, considering presidents only as tools applied to the mission, regardless of whoever happened to be president at the time.
Do you know will be the first to radically break from Lame Dic Don? Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, and RFK Jr. The crack in the damn will be when Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury and Commerce Secretaries Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick follow…and then the damn will burst. As Nicolae Ceauşescu learned, it’s amazing how quickly sycophants can turn on a dictator when most have hated him all along.
So, to me, Donald F. Trump is now Lame Dictator Donald, or Lame Dic Don (#LameDicDon). So, let the chant of Lame Dic Don become the new Let’s Go Brandon.
“This is a dick-wagging exercise by a small and psychologically broken, demented old man.”
As we have see with Mamdani, Trump can be handled. It’s the young men and women in the administration who are controlling Trump.
Easterbrook was appointed by Reagan, and before that was Deputy Solicitor General under Bork. He is fairly famous in legal circles for his usually hardline conservative opinions. He sometimes mocks litigants (and even other courts) in his opinions, which some find entertaining I guess. He can also be unbelievably pretentious, condescending, and pedantic.
Consider this little lecture he delivered to a district court:
But the method of getting to a sanction should be characterized by intellectual discipline, which here means (at least) consideration of the possibility that the sanctions for the two filings are different. Because this case involved a request for a tidy sum, the court should explain why it chose to equate the two sanctions (if that remains its disposition after reconsideration). As we stressed in Brown v. Federation of State Medical Boards, 830 F.2d at 1438–40, an explanation need not be complex, and a judge need not pretend that there is a single right answer that can be reached by deductive logic or defended with precision. The absence of ineluctable answers does not imply the privilege to indulge an unexamined gestalt. This case must be remanded so that the district court may put its reasoning on record—a process that, by inducing critical scrutiny of one’s initial reactions, often improves the quality of decisions. Frantz v. U.S. Powerlifting Federation, 836 F.2d 1063, 1066 (7th Cir. 1987).
I don’t know how you tell if your gestalt is unexamined, but I’d say anyone who utters that phrase is definitely being an insufferable prick.
LOL, Easterbrook’s famous “Brown v Board of Medication Condescension,” which is extremely difficult to confuse with actual jurisprudence due to its sneeringly overweening opacity.
It’s as if someone crossed Bill Buckley with Archie Bunker.
Heh. Infinite Jest applied to the law.
I read Buckley back in the day when it was new and well regarded — decades ago. I was a Rockefeller Republican in those days (before Attica). I was stunned that this vaunted intellectual’s arguments were almost entirely ad hominem. He really doesn’t deserve the reputation as being a whit more thoughtful than Archie Bunker.
Judge Eaterbrook’s ineluctable gestalt has been on display forever!
Ed, I can’t remember a more scathing post from your keyboard. Thank you for speaking for justice with this intensity.
I’m writing from Dallas, which is only starting to see ICE sweeps reported in the press, so I’m not as informed on what this feels like as people in (checks notes) LA, Chicago, Portland, Charlotte … but here’s what I thought, while reading:
Has the panel noticed from news reports that the federal shutdown has ended and at least some air traffic controllers are getting paid, so Bovino and his goon squad could come back?
Ordinarily I would not expect a three-judge panel to make an official finding that a lower court erred by being both “over broad” and “too prescriptive”; while not exact antitheses, these categories tend to exclude each other in legal rulings. But this panel seems determined to find whatever fault they could, without regard to actual reason.
Thank you, Ed, for this bracing (if depressing) follow up to the story of our shared hometown. It’s better to know what they’re doing.
“overbroad”: they looked at too much evidence.
“too prescriptive”: they ordered a change from the status quo.
/s
Status quo Trump. You have it right, IthaquaQ.
These judges don’t seem to understand their own country’s laws. Having “representatives” of the federal government going around attacking citizens is something which has happened in the past and it doesn’t appear some in officer have learned anything. It doesn’t end well. Perhaps some of you are younger than I but I clearly remember the Civil Rights marches which were attacked by dogs, baton carrying police and in those states it was all o.k. Then there were the shootings and killing at Kent State.
Police and national guards, etc. attacking people simply going about their business or lawful protests it just a tad over the top. Those judges aren’t judges, they’re acting as stooges for trump and his gang. Pepper spraying a toddler. Wow, those guys must be desperate to demonstrate, o.k. I won’t go there. We don’t know who these hooded people are but they simply appear to be out of control. The judges who are good with this behavour are just as out of control as the goons beating and assaulting toddlers to seniors. If a parent or any one else pepper sprayed a toddler they’d be arrested and most likely be sentenced to jail for awhile. In these cases the judges are like, go forth and sin or beat the shit out of everyone. Don’t know what the judges get out of this decision,but they ought to remember, even if they think it will put them in trump’s good graces, they’re delusional.
I have no doubt trump isn’t playing with a full deck Now it appears neither are these judges.
We just visited the Pullman National Monument. And saw once again how our history is full of awfulness we like to forget. National Guard troops were called to put down the Pullman strike brutally ‘because it affected mail cars on the same trains with Pullman cars.’ Our history is full of outrageous uses of lethal power against citizens — from labor history and against Black communities There is always an excuse to call down the military on American citizens when it pleases the oligarchs to do so.