A federal District Court in Illinois (Sara J. Ellis) has preliminarily enjoined Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from violating the Constitutional rights of protesters in Chicago, filing an extensive written opinion to follow her oral temporary restraining order issued on October 9 and modified on October 17. The modified order required all federal agents trained in using body-warn cameras to activate them when engaged in enforcement activity.
The Court had also certified several classes of plaintiffs, as suggested by the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision saying that injunctions would be effective only between the specific plaintiffs and defendants, and would not establish the law country-wide.
The plaintiffs argued that ICE and other agencies had used indiscriminate use of force against protesters, religious practitioners and the press in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments. In a lengthy opinion of approximately 70,000 words, the Court reviewed the “mountain of evidence” submitted by the plaintiffs and defendants’ reports, hours of body camera footage and surveillance footage. The Court found the defendants’ evidence was “simply not credible.” (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, N.D. IL, No. 25 C 12173, 11/20/25.)
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