Gregory Bovino, the commander of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, is leaving the city after federal agents fatally shot two people in less than three weeks, the Associated Press reported.
Bovino had been the “go-to architect” for large-scale immigration crackdowns ordered by President Donald Trump, and the AP described him as a public face of the administration’s city-by-city sweeps. Before heading to Minnesota in December, the AP said he led agents in Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans, and that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called the Minnesota deployment its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
The AP’s reporting portrayed Bovino as a figure who embraces aggressive tactics and norm-breaking behavior. In Los Angeles, agents have smashed car windows, blown open a door to a house and patrolled MacArthur Park on horseback, according to the AP. The AP also reported Bovino’s view that smashing windows when a driver refuses to open is “a safer tactic than letting someone drive away and then getting in a high-speed pursuit.”
The AP reported Bovino described an earlier Huntington Park, California raid — in which agents blasted the door off a home — as “a very, very prudent, thoughtful application of tactics.” In the AP account, Bovino said he did not want to surround a house for “hours and hours and hours and then create another riot.”
In Chicago, the AP reported agents stormed an apartment complex by helicopter, deploying chemical agents near a public school and handcuffing a Chicago City Council member at a hospital. The AP said agents rappelled down to the apartment building from a Black Hawk helicopter, and that authorities described the operation as targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The AP said 37 immigrants were arrested, with only two described as gang members, while the rest were described as being in the country illegally, including some with criminal histories. The AP also said one U.S. citizen was arrested on an outstanding narcotics warrant.
The AP reported that activists, residents and leaders said the tactics in Chicago sparked violence and fueled neighborhood tensions. The AP also reported a federal judge issued a rare rebuke to Bovino, saying he misled the court about the threats posed by protesters and deployed tear gas and pepper balls without justification during a chaotic downtown confrontation.
The AP said Bovino also advocated a high-tempo enforcement approach, telling reporters, “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.”
The AP traced Bovino’s career through earlier Border Patrol leadership roles and described his departure from a previous command in California. It reported that he was one of 20 regional Border Patrol chiefs when he was relieved of his command leading the agency’s sector in El Centro, California. The AP said Bovino blamed an online profile photo of him posing with an M4 assault rifle, social media posts judged inappropriate, and sworn congressional testimony he and other sector chiefs gave during a record surge of migrants.
The AP said Bovino described being removed shortly after his second congressional hearing in 2023, writing that “Thirty minutes after his second congressional hearing,” he was asked, “Are you going to retire now?” The AP reported that he did not retire and returned to prominence after the change from the Biden administration to Trump in 2025, when the AP said his profile photo was restored online and he returned to lead immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.
The AP said Bovino joined the Border Patrol in 1996 and is nearing the agency’s mandatory retirement age of 57. It also reported that he planned to return home to North Carolina to harvest apples. It described his media approach through past demonstrations, including leading journalists in swimming across the All-American Canal in 2021 and in 2023 locking reporters in a vehicle trunk. The AP also reported that when assigned to lead a station in Blythe, California, he pitched an airport and bus-station operation in Las Vegas that was supposed to last three days but was called off after the first hour yielded dozens of arrests, leading to a reaction from then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
In the AP account, Bovino has defended enforcement that includes people described by critics as having deep roots in the country, saying they “skip the line” ahead of people waiting to enter legally. The AP reported that Bovino said, “The folks undercutting American businesses, is that right?” and responded, “Absolutely not. That’s why we have immigration laws in the first place, and that’s why I’m here.”
The AP also included praise from former superior Paul Beeson, who the AP said described Bovino as “not afraid to push the envelope, very articulate, leads from the front.”