When Donald Trump won the presidency just over a year ago, Gregory Bovino was ready to seize the opportunity. From his post as chief of the Border Patrol in El Centro, which encompasses the Imperial Valley of southeastern California, he had worked hard to curry favor with the Republican. Two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, the official sent dozens of agents hundreds of thousands north to Kern County in the Central Valley to conduct arrests at gas stations and along the highway, terrorizing the migrant community in the agricultural heartland of the nation’s most populous state. Bovino announced at the time that the operation was intended to arrest criminals, but of the 78 people detained, only one had a criminal record.
The stage was set, and the image of a ruthless agent against undocumented immigrants that he sought to project paid off. After nearly three decades with the Border Patrol, Bovino has become the uniform face of Trump’s immigration offensive. Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem refers to him as the general commander of the Border Patrol (CBP). He has led the Trump administration’s most aggressive operations against migrants and has overseen the deployment of federal forces in Democratic-leaning cities, first in Los Angeles and then in Chicago.
The brutality with which these agents, encouraged by their superior, have carried out their operations and reacted to citizen protests against immigration raids in Chicago — from using tear gas to firing rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators — has reached the courts. Federal Judge Sara Ellis of the Northern District of Illinois had ordered Tuesday that the officer appear before her court every day at 5:45 p.m. to report on the arrests made by CBP that day, as well as any incidents that occurred, to ensure that the agents are complying with the law and remaining within constitutional limits. On Wednesday, however, an appeals court suspended the order.
The hearings were scheduled to continue until November 5 as part of a lawsuit filed by media outlets and protesters alleging that agents used excessive force during Operation Midway Blitz, launched in early September to detain migrants in Chicago. By mid-October, the number of detentions was around 1,500 for the Illinois office, which also covers five neighboring states. This is a very low number, considering the federal government’s reported goal of 3,000 migrant detentions per day.
However, Bovino’s role in encouraging the use of violence against migrants and protesters was captured in a video in which he is seen throwing a tear gas canister into a crowd, despite a judge having previously prohibited its use to quell protests. While his subordinates covered their faces with masks, he chose not to, thus reinforcing his image as a tough guy fighting crime.
“I suspect that now that he knows where we are and understands what I expect, we won’t see much use of tear gas next week,” Ellis said at Tuesday’s hearing. The judge has also demanded that Bovino produces all reports related to his officers’ actions since September 2. This has been left in limbo following the latest appeals court order.
This isn’t the first time Bovino has faced legal trouble. In 2022, while serving as head of CBP in New Orleans, two African American employees filed a lawsuit against him alleging discrimination. Both were finalists for the second-highest ranking position in that sector, but Bovino canceled the vacancy and instead hired a close, white friend. The judge rejected the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) request to dismiss the lawsuit, finding an email from the hired friend that compared Bovino to a Confederate general and the New Orleans office to a unit of Black Union soldiers. The judge found evidence of racial bias in the hiring, but the DHS reached an out-of-court settlement.
Bovino is a North Carolina native and has worked for the Border Patrol for 29 years. Trump promoted him after asking him to lead the anti-immigration operation in Los Angeles this summer, which resulted in thousands of arrests. During those months, agents smashed car windows, broke down a house door, and patrolled MacArthur Park on horseback, frightening residents.
When Nick Miroff, a journalist for The Atlantic, asked the Department of Homeland Security why Bovino had risen from his office in El Centro to his position as head of operations in California, the answer he got came from DHS defending Tricia McLaughlin: “Because he’s a badass,” she said.
