IDs are mismatched, illegible — or still missing three weeks after judge’s order to immigration officers

Three weeks ago, a federal judge in Chicago ordered federal immigration officers that have been sweeping area streets to add individual IDs to their uniforms, an order she repeated Tuesday in court directly to the Trump administration’s top immigration enforcer here.

But dozens of photographs of uniformed immigration agents shot by Chicago Sun-Times photojournalists in four separate locations since the court order show how the feds have fallen short. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis on Oct. 9 ordered "visible identification" that is "prominently displayed."

The 80-plus photos show that not all officers are displaying a visible identification code that mixes numbers and letters during some of the most contentious recent immigration actions that have included chasing people through local neighborhoods.

This contradicts what Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said on Tuesday. Bovino told the judge he had already ordered officers from various divisions of Customs and Border Protection to display individual badges.

“I instructed all agents under my command … to place an identifier conspicuously somewhere on their uniform,” he said in court, under oath.

Deputy Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office Director Shawn Byers already told Ellis his agents wore a numbered badge like one he showed her in court on Oct. 20. They’re all required to while enforcing immigration policies, he said.

Ellis has already conceded that these officers, who are public employees, can break with common practice of displaying their last names in a nod to the government’s argument that doing so potentially makes them a target for retaliation.

Still, among the officers wearing what looks like ID codes on their helmets or camouflage clothes, it’s hard to make sense of them all. Many of the letters and numbers mimic a military stencil. Some are black and white, extra hard to read when stuck on a green camouflage background.

Generally the pattern has consisted of a letter or two followed by a few numbers: DZ-3, NS 1212, A666. Lately numbers have grown longer: TXSC00127.

However, the codes appear on different parts of officers’ uniforms: both arms, the chest, on backpacks or on the side or back of a helmet.

All of this makes it difficult to pick out who is responsible for problematic actions, which recently have included the arrest of U.S. citizens, the release of tear gas on residential streets, particularly without warning as ordered by Ellis, and the shooting of people including a pastor wearing his clerical collar with pepper balls.

Lawyers from Loevy and Loevy who represent the journalists and protesters who filed the suit Oct. 6 that’s now before Ellis say they have yet to learn what the letter-number combinations mean — whether they signify who each officer is or where each officer is assigned. The lawsuit plaintiffs include the union representing Chicago Sun-Times journalists.

Bovino, who answered Ellis’ questions during a 90-minute hearing Tuesday, has been the lone exception since President Donald Trump dispatched an influx of federal officers for an immigration “blitz” in the Chicago area beginning in September. He wears a cloth name tape — “G Bovino” in small black capital letters — across his chest. He also stands out as a rare officer here who has not covered his face with a mask or balaclava.

No one from Border Patrol, ICE or its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, responded to a request for an interview. DHS has previously said that providing details about individual officers puts a target on their backs.

It’s not clear whether officers haven’t been instructed by superiors to add the identifiers or are opting not to put them on. Regardless of the reason, the missing IDs documented by the Sun-Times mark the latest example of CBP and ICE efforts to evade accountability by masking individual officers. 

The Sun-Times has previously documented federal officers driving around Chicago and the suburbs in vehicles without proper license plates, or using plates with some blacked-out digits.

Local authorities have tried to step in to curb abuses: Following the license plate reporting, the Illinois Secretary of State launched a tipline to collect and investigate problem Illinois plates, threatening punishment, including jail time.

Mayor Brandon Johnson also signed an executive order barring masks that obscure officers’ faces and requiring body cameras. But officers are still wearing masks and it’s not yet clear if they’re turning their cameras on before “engaging” with the public. Ellis this week ordered Bovino to wear a functioning camera by Friday.

The lawsuit before Ellis accuses immigration officers of violating First Amendment protections of a free press by targeting them with tear gas, pepper balls and other chemical munitions as they seek to document the officers’ actions. Here is some of what the Sun-Times has documented:

• Photographs taken on Chicago’s Southeast Side on Oct. 15, less than a week after Ellis’ initial order, show no individual identifiers on some of the CBP officers who pin a teenager to the ground and arrest him. (The teen, a 15-year-old U.S. citizen, was released several hours later, without charges, according to the law firm representing him.) What is prominent are SRT patches on their arms or helmets, linking them to what’s known as the Special Response Team.

At that same scene, the olive green uniform on an agent seen speaking with Chicago police has several patches and badges that only identify him as a member of Border Patrol.

For Border Patrol agents, one of a handful of CBP divisions, a 33-page memo on grooming and uniform standards explains that badge patches and name tapes are provided with every tactical duty uniform and include “at least the first initial and complete last name of the wearer… All name tapes must be worn directly above the right pocket of the shirt. All name tapes and nameplates must reflect the wearer’s name.”

The memo is from 2021, and currently CBP’s website says nothing about uniforms but does include detailed grooming standards dictating such things as hair and fingernail length and acceptable kinds of glasses.

• On Oct. 23 during arrests across Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, the only patch visible on the masked officer sitting on a woman under arrest reads CTAC. That’s a branch of border protection that usually addresses import safety. 

Among a group standing with Bovino that same day, one has EZ9 in black and white digits on his right arm, a second one has digits on his helmet but they’re faded or scratched off. A third officer’s chest has something stenciled on it but it’s illegible.

• On Tuesday, as Bovino returned to federal court, officers making arrests at Archer Avenue and Halsted Street had added handwritten numbers on what looked like pieces of white or yellow tape stuck to their vests. 

Still, one officer’s digits were taped on upside down. Another agent’s were illegible on a loop hanging below his vest.

Some officers who accompanied Bovino at the courthouse also had added handwritten numbers taped on to their front vest straps.

On Tuesday, Judge Ellis told Bovino she wanted to agree with him on where the identifiers should appear on agents’ uniforms.

“Why don’t we say that the identifier needs to be in a conspicuous location, at least two places, is that fair?” she asked.

Instead, Bovino suggested, “Can we have ‘in a conspicuous location'?”

The judge said she wasn't trying to micromanage; she just wants to make it easy for agents and for herself “when I’m looking to see whether there’s a violation.”

“Yes ma’am,” Bovino said.

Neither the reporters nor editors who worked on this story — including some represented by the Newspaper Guild — have been involved in the lawsuit described in this article.

An earlier version incorrectly said one officer was photographed with two ID patches with different sets of numbers and letters on their uniform.