U.S. District Judge Luis Alonso has ordered federal officials to allow Radule Bojovic, an Illinois police officer, to return to his work. The judge has strongly condemned the Trump administration for its treatment of Bojovic based on accusations that he is an illegal immigrant. The status hearing on his case will begin on Thursday (March 19) morning.
On Tuesday, March 17, Alonso granted Bojovic’s request for a temporary restraining order against the administration. He criticized the administration’s approach toward the officer’s livelihood as “shockingly cavalier.”
According to Law & Crime, Bojovic, who is employed with the Hanover Park Police Department, has been in the U.S. for almost 12 years. The Montenegro native entered the country back in 2014 with his family. The judge recounted that his father filed an “Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal” when Bojovic was just 16.
ICE arrested a suburban Chicago police officer on Wednesday after discovering he had been living in the United States illegally for over a decade.
Radule Bojovic, 33, a native of Montenegro was serving as a sworn officer with the Hanover Park Police Department.
Bojovic… pic.twitter.com/hPAAcffEDb
— Sarah Fields (@SarahisCensored) October 17, 2025
However, the application has been pending for over 10 years now. As a result, Bojovic earned an employment authorization from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). His most recent renewal for the same was in September 2025.
On March 17, the judge delivered a six-page order that emphasizes that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will have to allow Bojovic to return to his work as the immigration case against him unfolds.
He was arrested in October 2025 during an immigration operation by the Trump administration in Chicago and its suburbs. DHS claimed that the man “overstayed his visa by more than 10 years.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) insisted that the “illegal alien” was “prohibited from owning or possessing firearms.”
Bojovic was detained for two weeks before being released on bond. In November 2025, as he returned to work, federal officers initiated his removal proceedings. At that time, the Trump administration criticized Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for allowing him to work in law enforcement.
Then-assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “Pritzker doesn’t just allow violent illegal aliens to terrorize Illinois’s communities; he allows illegal aliens to work as sworn police officers. What kind of police department gives criminal illegal aliens badges and guns?”
The immigration enforcement’s press release stated, “This is just the latest instance of Governor JB Pritzker’s continued refusal to abide by federal laws, jeopardizing the welfare of Illinois residents.”
In December 2025, Bojovic received a “Notice of Intent to Revoke” his employment authorization, despite the same being renewed only two months earlier. In January, he was subsequently notified that the authorization had been revoked by USCIS. The agency claimed that “he had not responded to the NOIR and reiterating that he had been removed from his father’s asylum application on December 3, 2025.”
.@GovPritzker doesn’t just allow illegal aliens to terrorize Illinois’s communities, he allows them to work as sworn police officers.
Radule Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to depart the U.S. on March 31, 2015. Over a decade later, he was still illegally… pic.twitter.com/7rQFULQh20
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 16, 2025
However, Bojovic claimed otherwise, and the judge recounted that his response “correctly explained that the factual basis for revocation asserted in the NOIR was incorrect.” The man filed for a temporary restraining order (TRO) stating that not being able to work will lead to a “complete loss of income” for him. The administration allegedly dismissed his concerns.
Alonso noted in his order, “Defendants are shockingly cavalier about the consequences that may flow from the loss of a person’s livelihood and the interruption of a fledgling career.” The Barack Obama-appointee judge ruled, “Taking all the facts and circumstances into consideration, and accounting for the high likelihood of success, the equities weigh rather decisively in Plaintiff’s favor.”
“Plaintiff is a public servant who has not been shown to present any threat to the community (quite the opposite, if anything), and the Court fails to see what the government gains by suspending his employment without pay based on what appears likely to be, so far as the parties have shown at this early stage, a legal and/or factual error,” Alonso concluded.
