CHICAGO — Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino was all fired up on cable news Wednesday about being ordered to meet daily with a federal judge, telling conservative Fox News host Harris Faulkner he couldn’t wait to give the judge a “very good first-hand look at just how bad things are on the streets of Chicago.”

“I’ll look forward to meeting with that judge,” Bovino said in his trademark twang, “to show her exactly what’s happening, and the extreme amount of violence against law enforcement here.”

Hours later, lawyers for Bovino sang a different tune, filing an emergency motion with the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the daily debriefings ordered by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis “significantly interferes with the quintessentially executive function of ensuring the Nation’s immigration laws are properly enforced by waylaying a senior executive official critical to that mission on a daily basis.”

At a hearing late Wednesday, Ellis told the parties the whole thing left her “a little surprised.”

“Only because I did see Mr. Bovino’s interview on Fox News where he did state that he was excited to come to court and that this would not impede his activities or his ability to manage the operation at all,” Ellis said, according to a transcript of the brief hearing. “So I was a little surprised just to see that the government’s position as stated in the (7th Circuit motion) was directly contradicted by Mr. Bovino.”

How it all shakes out was still an open question. The appellate court agreed to stay Ellis’ order temporarily while the issue is hashed out, ordering the plaintiffs in the underlying lawsuit to file a brief on the matter by 5 p.m. Thursday.

Bovino, meanwhile, was already at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse for the second time this week on Thursday, this time for a sworn, five-hour deposition ahead of an injunction hearing next week, where Ellis will decide what, if any, restrictions to place on use of force by federal immigration agents during “Operation Midway Blitz.”

While the deposition was being conducted behind closed doors, portions of Bovino’s answers about alleged violations of Ellis’ temporary restraining order will likely become public during the injunction arguments.

Ellis’ unusual request for the daily debriefings from Bovino came as allegations have mounted that agents under his command are indiscriminately throwing tear gas in Chicago neighborhoods and using inappropriate force against residents and reporters during protests over the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration enforcement push.

During a remarkable hourlong session with Bovino on the witness stand Tuesday, Ellis also instructed the 30-year Border Patrol veteran to get his own body camera and send her every use-of-force report — and accompanying bodycam footage — filed since the operation began nearly two months ago.

Bovino was polite and agreeable to all of Ellis’ demands while he was on the stand. But afterward on Fox News, he complained that it had not come up that a Chicago gang had allegedly put a bounty on his head.

“I was not able to even mention that yesterday,” Bovino told Faulkner in the interview, which he later posted on social media. “I did very little talking as you know…But that does need to come into the conversation, because a bounty on someone’s head, that ratchets up the threat picture.”

Sporting a high-and-tight haircut and talking often in militaristic terms, Bovino has been featured in slickly produced social media videos put out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security purporting to be ridding Chicago’s streets of the “worst of the worst,” undocumented immigrants who have a history of violent criminal behavior.

But scant details on those arrested have been officially released, and critics say the vast majority have had no criminal backgrounds whatsoever.

Bovino has not only not shied away from the controversy, he’s placed himself directly in it. He was present during the massive raid on a South Shore apartment building earlier this month that drew national headlines. And he reappeared last week on two separate days in Little Village, the heart of Chicago’s Mexican community and an important economic engine for the city, where Bovino himself was seen personally throwing tear gas canisters at a crowd of protesters.

Bovino, meanwhile, has claimed he only used the gas after an angry mob was throwing objects at officers and a rock hit him in the head.

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