U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis
CHICAGO — Describing the order as "overbroad" and "constitutionally suspect," a federal appeals court has taken the rare step of completely vacating a Chicago federal judge's ruling restraining immigration enforcement actions, saying the move was needed to essentially send a clear message to U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis and other federal district judges to avoid entering similar orders as efforts continue by Illinois Democrats and anti-deportation activists to restrain ICE.
On March 5, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago wiped away a controversial and headline-grabbing injunction entered by Judge Ellis against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol operations in Illinois.
The ruling was nominally 2-1. Seventh Circuit judges Michael Brennan and Michael Scudder wrote for the majority, while Judge Frank Easterbrook dissented.
In the unsigned majority opinion, Brennan and Scudder blasted Ellis' order, asserting it amounted to unconstitutional judicial overreach, as the judge essentially placed herself into a position of authority and oversight over ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and perhaps the entire Executive Branch of the federal government, which constitutionally is delegated to the President.
In that headline-grabbing order, Ellis weighed in on the fight between anti-deportation activists and journalists, on one side, and federal immigration authorities on the other.
The plaintiffs had sued the ICE and Border Patrol in 2025, asking the court to put an end to what they called an unconstitutional "pattern of extreme brutality" against the so-called "rapid response networks" of activists and others who would follow and harry immigration officers, as well as protestors and journalists gathered outside the ICE processing facility in suburban Broadview or at the sites of ICE raids and arrests.
They asserted the tactics were used as a bid to "silence press and civilians."
Federal agents asserted the control measures were necessitated by aggressive and hostile actions from activists, protestors and members of so-called "rapid response teams" who would routinely follow ICE patrols and interfere with arrests. The agencies asserted the activists were attempting to use the court to essentially protect rioters and others engaged in unlawful interference with federal law enforcement.
In her ruling, Ellis famously sided almost entirely with the anti-government position, blocking ICE and Border Patrol agents associated with the now-ended "Operation Midway Blitz" and other immigration enforcement operations from using physical force or riot control weapons or even from "issuing a crowd dispersal order" requiring so-called protestors "to leave a public place that they lawfully have a right to be."
The order prohibited federal agents from "using hands-on physical force such as pulling or shoving to the ground, tackling, or body slamming" anyone "who is not causing an immediate threat of physical harm to others..."
The order also granted those claiming to be journalists the right to remain in an area undisturbed, even after an otherwise lawful dispersal order was given.
In her ruling, Ellis conceded activists and "protestors" had engaged in violent acts against ICE agents. But she said she believed federal agents' response "shocked the conscience" in acting against people who Ellis described as merely neighbors “who have shown up for each other.”
As she delivered the ruling from the bench, Ellis famously read from the Carl Sandburg poem, "Chicago," emphasizing the line: “And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer."
Ellis' order was quickly blocked on appeal by the Seventh Circuit panel, with judges saying they were troubled by Ellis' apparent judicial overreach, seeking to exert control even over the President of the United States himself.
Following that ruling, the anti-ICE activist plaintiffs moved to abandon their case altogether, rather than risk a possible precedent-setting decision that could frustrate future efforts to sue ICE. They then asked Judge Ellis to dismiss the lawsuit.
Ellis, however, declined to do so — or at least to do so on the plaintiffs' terms.
She instead kept the case alive just long enough to allow her to use court rules to also claim authority to preside over a new, more sweeping lawsuit brought by Illinois Democrats who are seeking to win a court order essentially shutting down ICE's current operations statewide.
That lawsuit, filed on Jan. 12 by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, with the support of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, along with the city of Chicago, essentially seeks court orders that would hamstring the ability of ICE to carry out immigration raids and patrols within the state, and orders prohibiting Border Patrol from operating within Illinois and supporting ICE in Illinois at all.
In that new lawsuit, Raoul asserts the immigration enforcement actions amount to violations of Illinois' state sovereignty by the federal government by using the raids to force a direct confrontation and compel the Democrat-dominated state government to stop resisting federal efforts to enforce immigration law and arrest and deport illegal immigrants in Illinois.
Democrats, led by governors, including Pritzker and his counterparts in California and Minnesota, have steadfastly opposed all efforts by the federal government to arrest and deport illegal immigrants.
Pritzker, for instance, has stated he believes all immigrants, whether in the country legally or not, should be allowed to live in peace, so long as they do not violate criminal laws.
However, Pritzker has also strongly supported Illinois' so-called state sanctuary laws which work to shield even criminal illegal aliens for arrest and deportation by prohibiting state and local police and correctional officers from cooperating with ICE and Border Patrol.
While claiming control over the new Illinois governmental lawsuit, Ellis also formally dismissed the activists' legal action. But she did so in a way which both the Justice Department and the federal appeals judges recognized could allow activists to jump right back into court and secure a similar order in the future.
Seeking to shut down such "dangerous" legal maneuvers before they begin, the appeals court majority said they believed the appropriate move in the case now was to eviscerate Ellis' "constitutionally suspect" injunction.
The majority issued a so-called order of "vacatur," meaning it is as if Ellis' order was never issued.
In the ruling, the majority also took aim at the evidence Ellis relied upon. They criticized her decision to treat government witnesses as unreliable, while readily accepting claims from activist plaintiffs as credible, even when in dispute.
They said the vacatur was needed to send a message to Ellis and other district courts to not make the same mistakes.
Ellis, for instance, has already indicated she will allow the state of Illinois and city of Chicago to use the evidentiary record built in the earlier case to help establish their claims, too.
"At the least, ... it would not be appropriate for a future case to incorporate the district court’s findings of fact or legal conclusions without further, more detailed analysis," the majority wrote. "We can help avoid that pitfall by vacating the order that depends on these conclusions."
In dissent, Easterbrook did not contest Brennan's and Scudder's legal conclusions and opinion concerning Ellis' ruling. Rather, he asserted the majority went too far in vacating the injunction in a case which was effectively moot.
"My colleagues are troubled by some of the events in this litigation, and I share those concerns," Easterbrook wrote. "But appellate judges’ dissatisfaction with the district court’s handling of a suit should not matter unless at least one of the parties is dissatisfied—and none of the parties to this case now expresses dissatisfaction."
