Gregory Bovino, a long-time Border Patrol officer who emerged as a visible face of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration-enforcement push in large cities, said he plans to retire in the coming weeks, according to an interview with The Associated Press. Bovino, 55, confirmed to the wire service that he will step away from the agency as his career in enforcement approaches its end.
Bovino has spent decades rising through Border Patrol ranks since joining the agency in 1996. In last June, he became commander of what the administration used as a crackdown operation in Los Angeles, a role that the AP described as involving thousands of arrests and high-profile actions in neighborhoods and businesses in the area.
In Los Angeles, Bovino’s profile expanded beyond the border region as he led and appeared with tactical emphasis during operations that included arrests connected to locations such as stores and other public-facing settings. The AP reported that his approach also included actions that drew public backlash, including episodes involving the entry of agents into residential spaces and patrols in prominent public areas.
The AP said Bovino later brought the same enforcement posture to Chicago, where he patrolled in the city’s downtown areas and neighborhoods and participated in raids. The AP also reported that demonstrations accompanied some of those operations, and that Bovino described the use-of-force approach in terms of deploying chemical agents when officers deemed it necessary to carry out arrests. The account also notes that the Department of Homeland Security said Bovino was hit with a rock in a separate encounter during a crowd interaction, while bystanders disputed the claim.
A federal judge later weighed in on the Chicago events in an order requiring Bovino to provide daily briefings on how his agents were enforcing immigration-related laws under constitutional standards. The order, described by the AP, came after U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis directed Bovino on Oct. 28 to submit those daily updates.
Bovino’s enforcement efforts also played out as parts of the operation moved to other states, and the AP said he became a near-daily presence as the Trump administration’s approach collided with demonstrations in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The wire report said that after the Jan. 24 killing of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti—an episode the AP tied to a period of heightened tensions between demonstrators and immigration authorities—Bovino left Minnesota shortly afterward.
The AP reported that he was replaced by Tom Homan, a White House border enforcement coordinator who took over after the death of Pretti. In the AP account of Bovino’s broader public presence, the story also identifies other deaths in the Minnesota period that the administration’s enforcement efforts became linked to as the situation escalated.
Bovino is retiring as chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro, California, sector, a position the AP said he held since 2020. The Associated Press reported that Bovino had also discussed his tactics in prior AP interviews, including a “turn and burn” approach aimed at mounting arrests across areas in the Los Angeles region, and that he described the role of the Border Patrol as enforcing laws in a way consistent with the Constitution.