From Los Angeles to Minneapolis, Bovino’s aggressive tactics reveal how immigration enforcement has escalated — and who pays the price.
Dozens of agents, their faces covered even beneath gas masks, bulletproof vests, and riot gear, lined up in front of the Minneapolis federal building where the Trump administration has maintained the central base of its intense immigration operation in the city for weeks. Across the freezing street, a group of protesters hurled insults at them. From among the officers emerged the figure of Gregory Bovino. He wore a long, double-breasted, military-green coat and a matching scarf to protect himself from the sub-zero temperatures. On each shoulder, two yellow patches identified him as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. He scanned the crowd from side to side, whispered a few words, and disappeared again among the agents. Seconds later, they charged the protesters with tear gas and pepper spray.
Nothing new in the operations that Bovino, 55, has led against immigration in recent months in several U.S. cities, operations that have earned him criticism, lawsuits, and the approval of President Donald Trump. His rise to the position of commander-in-chief of the Border Patrol, as designated by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, coincided with Trump’s dissatisfaction with the pace of migrant deportations, insufficient to achieve his goal of carrying out the “largest deportation in history.” The Republican criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for not making more arrests and, to remedy this, last June he turned to Bovino, a proponent of more aggressive tactics, who has been present at the main confrontations.
Minneapolis is Bovino’s latest posting, but his face first became known in June of last year, when Trump put him in charge of the anti-immigration campaign in Los Angeles, which resulted in thousands of arrests. Chicago, Charlotte (in North Carolina), and New Orleans followed.
During the operation in California, agents smashed car windows, broke down doors of residences, and patrolled MacArthur Park on horseback, spreading fear among the population. The speed and forcefulness of the operation were unprecedented. Bovino’s professional rise illustrated the radical change that immigration policy has undergone in Trump’s second term.
In September, the Republican put him in charge of Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, where his controversial methods in detaining migrants met with strong public opposition. Bovino ordered his officers to violently charge protesters, and he himself was filmed deploying tear gas. A federal judge in Chicago, who had previously banned such methods, determined that Bovino lied under oath during depositions related to his operations and ordered him to provide daily reports on his actions, although an appeals court overturned that ruling.
Under Bovino’s command, officers routinely used pepper spray and tear gas, and a helicopter was used to raid a house in an operation more reminiscent of a Hollywood film. Bovino, in fact, presents himself as one of those tough guys from action movies. Clad in his tactical gear, he likes to appear in videos and photos wielding high-caliber weapons. His profile picture on the social network X shows him wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying an M4 assault rifle with a telescopic sight, and he posts videos of his officers’ operations set to action-movie music and using slow motion in his appearances.
Sus pinitos con la propaganda ya los hizo en su puesto anterior, como jefe de la Patrulla Fronteriza en el sector de El Centro, en el sureste de California. En septiembre de 2020, poco después de asumir el mando, su equipo de redes sociales publicó un vídeo de ficción que mostraba a un supuesto migrante colándose en Estados Unidos y asesinando a la primera persona que encuentra. El vídeo tuvo que ser retirado por la polémica que suscitó.
