US appeals court pauses order requiring top border official to appear daily before judge

CHICAGO (Reuters) -A top U.S. border official won’t have to appear before a judge in Chicago on Wednesday after a U.S. appeals court paused her order directing him to come to court every weekday to answer questions about the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city.

Just hours before U.S. Customs and Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino was slated to appear in U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis’ courtroom Wednesday evening, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted Ellis’ order. Government attorneys had argued the directive interferes with Bovino’s work enforcing federal immigration law.

Ellis’ extraordinary order requiring Bovino’s regular appearance in her court came at the end of a highly unusual hearing on Tuesday where she read to him from a temporary restraining order she entered setting limits on federal agents’ use of anti-riot weapons like tear gas.

The judge is presiding over a lawsuit challenging the legality of the tactics used by officials carrying out Trump's Chicago crackdown called "Operation Midway Blitz."

The Republican president has made Chicago a focus of his aggressive immigration enforcement during the past two months. Under Bovino's leadership, federal agents have used tear gas in residential areas and forcibly subdued protesters while attempting to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally, drawing criticism and legal scrutiny.

(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Leslie Adler, Alexia Garamfalvi and Daniel Wallis)