Gregory Bovino, the commander of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown operations nationwide, is leaving Minneapolis after federal agents fatally shot two people in less than three weeks. Bovino had served as the chief architect and public face of the administration’s city-by-city immigration sweeps since arriving in Minnesota in December for what the Department of Homeland Security called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation. His departure comes amid mounting criticism over his use of aggressive, norm-breaking tactics.
Bovino’s tenure has been marked by escalating enforcement operations and controversial methods — from smashing car windows to deploying helicopter raids with chemical agents — that have drawn public rebukes from a federal judge and prompted intense scrutiny from local and state officials.
The Commander
Bovino had led ICE and Border Patrol operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Orleans before arriving in Minnesota in December to direct what the Department of Homeland Security described as its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation. His departure this week marks an abrupt pivot in a career that, until recently, seemed firmly rehabilitated after a 2023 removal from command.
The Tactics
Under his leadership, agents have smashed car windows, breached doors to homes with explosives, and deployed a Black Hawk helicopter to rappel agents onto an apartment complex in Chicago.
He defended the window-smashing tactic in an interview with the Associated Press, saying it is “a safer tactic than letting someone drive away and then getting in a high-speed pursuit.” Similarly, he characterized the decision to blast open a door at a home in Huntington Park, California, as “a very, very prudent, thoughtful application of tactics,” adding that he “didn’t want to surround a house for hours and hours and hours and then create another riot.”
In Chicago, the helicopter-based operation drew particular scrutiny. Agents deployed chemical agents near a public school and arrested a Chicago City Council member at a hospital. Of 37 immigrants arrested in the operation, authorities said only two were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua that the operation had targeted.
A federal judge issued a rare public rebuke of Bovino, stating that he had misled the court about the threats posed by protesters and had deployed tear gas and pepper balls without justification during a chaotic downtown confrontation.
The Philosophy
Bovino has articulated an enforcement philosophy centered on rapid escalation. “We’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop,” he told the Associated Press from the federal building in West Los Angeles, where a temporary enforcement base operates.
This approach diverges from the historical practice of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has typically relied on lengthy investigations and surveillance of individual targets before arrests. The traditional pace, officials acknowledged, would not support the mass deportations the Trump administration has promised.
Career and Context
Bovino joined the Border Patrol in 1996 and is approaching the agency’s mandatory retirement age of 57. His career before the Trump administration had been marked by media savvy and sometimes controversial demonstrations. In 2021, he led journalists in swimming across the All-American Canal to demonstrate its dangers to migrants. In 2023, he locked reporters in a vehicle trunk, saying he wanted them to appreciate the perils of undocumented crossing firsthand.
That same year, serving as a regional Border Patrol chief in El Centro, California, he was relieved of his command. He attributed the removal to an online profile picture showing him posing with an M4 assault rifle, social media posts deemed inappropriate, and congressional testimony he had given on border conditions.
The change in presidential administrations in January 2025 reversed his trajectory. The profile photograph reappeared online, and by summer, Bovino was leading immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles. The Trump administration embraced what conservative media outlets hailed as a confrontational, aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.
He has articulated a moral framework for enforcement that extends beyond traditional categories. While administration officials often describe enforcement priorities as targeting “the worst of the worst,” Bovino has embraced arrests of hard-working people with deep roots in the country, characterizing them as those who “skip the line” ahead of people waiting to enter the country legally. “The folks undercutting American businesses, is that right?” he said. “Absolutely not. That’s why we have immigration laws in the first place, and that’s why I’m here.”
He plans eventually to return to North Carolina to harvest apples.