Background: Riot police stand in formation during a protest outside of the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing and detention facility in Broadview, Illinois on November 15, 2025 (Photo by Bryan Dozier/NurPhoto via AP). Inset: Officer Radule Bojovic (Hanover Park Police Department).
A judge has ordered federal officials to allow an Illinois police officer to return to work, criticizing the Trump administration for its "shockingly cavalier" approach to the man's livelihood based on claims that he is in the country illegally.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso granted Radule Bojovic's request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Trump administration on Tuesday. The Illinois jurist's six-page order means the Department of Homeland Security cannot restrict Bojovic's employment with the Hanover Park Police Department while the immigration case against Bojovic — who has been in the U.S. for nearly a dozen years — plays out.
Bojovic, a native of Montenegro, entered the U.S. in 2014 with his family, the judge's order recounts. His father then filed an "Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal" that included then-16-year-old Bojovic. As the application has been pending for more than a decade, Bojovic applied for and received employment authorization from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), with the most recent renewal coming in September 2025.
During that time, Bojovic trained and worked with the Hanover Park Police Department, which congratulated Bojovic on graduating from the area's Suburban Law Enforcement Academy just one month before that renewal. The local agency added that he was set to begin an "intensive 15 weeks of field training and evaluation as he continues preparing to serve the Hanover Park community."
However, in October 2025, as federal immigration officers flooded Chicago and its suburbs as part of Operation Midway Blitz, Bojovic was arrested. DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) boasted about the arrest, saying he "overstayed his visa by more than 10 years" and was "prohibited from owning or possessing firearms" because he was an "illegal alien."
The federal agencies also took the opportunity to denounce Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — a frequent critic of President Donald Trump — and blame him for what they believed was a dangerous error.
"Pritzker doesn't just allow violent illegal aliens to terrorize Illinois's communities, he allows illegal aliens to work as sworn police officers," then-Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. "What kind of police department gives criminal illegal aliens badges and guns?"
"This is just the latest instance of Governor JB Pritzker's continued refusal to abide by federal laws, jeopardizing the welfare of Illinois residents," the ICE press release added.
Following the officer's arrest, he was detained for two weeks before being released on bond, the judge recounts. He returned to work in November, even as the federal government initiated removal proceedings against him.
On Dec. 11, 2025, USCIS issued a "Notice of Intent to Revoke" (NOIR) regarding his employment authorization, despite the authorization being renewed just months earlier. USCIS contended that Bojovic had been removed from his father's asylum application eight days earlier, though Bojovic "claims that this is untrue and/or erroneous."
In January, Bojovic was notified that his employment authorization was indeed revoked, "stating 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." Bojovic insisted that he did respond to the notice — on time and via FedEx — and that reply, according to the judge, "correctly explained that the factual basis for revocation asserted in the NOIR was incorrect."
Bojovic subsequently filed a complaint to have his work authorization reinstated and moved for a TRO so that he could go back to work.
He says that not being able to work will result in a "complete loss of income" and "will cause him to suffer the risk of irreparable harm due to damage to his career prospects and his inability to meet his financial obligations," the judge recounts.
The Trump administration, however, dismissed those concerns, arguing "economic harms are not irreparable and damage to career prospects is merely speculative."
Alonso, a Barack Obama appointee, appeared to be taken aback by the federal government's response.
"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," he wrote, adding that a response brief from the administration to Bojovic's complaint "is most notable for what it does not say: it does not defend USCIS's revocation decision on its own terms. That silence speaks volumes."
"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," Alonso concludes. "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."
A status hearing on this case is scheduled for Thursday morning.