Kristi Noem’s law and order persona is colliding with a reality in federal court, where a judge has accused her Border Patrol agents of spinning “impossible to believe” lies to justify a violent immigration crackdown in Chicago.
In a 233 page opinion, U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis dissects hours of bodycam footage from Operation Midway Blitz, a Trump era sweep that sent hundreds of Border Patrol agents into Chicago under Noem’s watch as Homeland Security secretary. The operation was advertised as a mission to hunt “the worst of the worst,” but the judge found everyday residents, families in Halloween costumes, and journalists on the receiving end of tear gas, flashbangs, and pepper rounds.
Ellis’ ruling fact checks of enforcement machine that has drawn a ton of critism. In one incident, she notes that agents, “immediately and without warning,” fired flashbang grenades, tear gas, and pepper balls at protesters while one shouted “fuck yea!” as the crowd scattered, a version of events that clashed sharply with reports portraying demonstrators as the initial aggressors.
The judge recounted footage showing an agent driving erratically, and then blaming civilians for the resulting collision.
Giving an incident in Evanston as an example, she writes that agents sped through stop signs and red lights and made a fast turn that caused a rear end crash, and then pinned bystanders on the pavement at gunpoint. One resident recording the scene was warned, “step back or I’m going to shoot you,” only to be released without charges moments later.
Ellis says the written accounts do not match what the cameras captured. Reports described “neighborhood moms and dads” and local sports fans as “professional agitators,” even when video shows them standing quietly or trying to leave.
THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS’s actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents’ own videos.
I’ll go through some of the most egregious ones here. https://t.co/Rfi6YSen2G pic.twitter.com/dl4j7M5S99
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) November 20, 2025
The opinion also reveals that at least one agent turned to artificial intelligence to fill in details, using ChatGPT to “compile a narrative for a report” from a one line prompt and a few images. When that AI assisted write up was compared to the raw footage, Ellis found that it inflated threats and glossed over how quickly agents escalated to force.
For Ellis, the growing credibility gap is the core issue. “Every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe,” she wrote, warning that the pattern of embellished and fabricated details has undermined trust in the government’s version of events.
Noem’s Border Patrol chief in Chicago, Gregory Bovino, comes in for especially harsh criticism. After three days of testimony, Ellis concluded that he was “evasive” and, at times, “outright lying” about why gas and munitions were used and how crash scenes unfolded.
Ellis temporarily barred agents from using tear gas and similar weapons without clear warnings, ordered them to keep body cameras running, and strengthened protections for reporters and legal observers. Those limits have been paused while Noem’s Department of Homeland Security appeals, hoping to continue her aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.
Judges have already questioned Noem’s attempts to link disaster funds to immigration policy and have criticized the rapid pace of her efforts to roll back protections for certain migrants.
Ellis’ opinion puts names, faces, and grainy video stills to the accounts emerging from Chicago and suggests that under Noem’s leadership, the nation’s border agents brought a culture of impunity to city streets, then tried to cover it with stories a federal judge no longer believes.
