Gregory Bovino & Trump’s Immigration Tactics | US Immigration

Dozens of agents, with their faces covered even under their gas masks, bulletproof vests and riot gear, lined up in front of the federal building in Minneapolis where Donald Trump’s Government has maintained the central base of its intense immigration operation in the city for weeks. On the other side of the frozen street, a group of protesters insulted them. Among the officers the figure of Gregory Bovino emerged. She was wearing a long, double-breasted, army green coat and a matching scarf to protect herself from the sub-zero temperatures. On each shoulder, two yellow patches identified him as a United States Border Patrol agent. He scanned the crowd from side to side with his eyes, whispered a few words, and disappeared back into the officers. Seconds later, they charged at the protesters with tear gas and pepper spray.

Nothing new in the operations that Bovino, 55, has directed against immigration in recent months in several cities in the United States and which have earned him criticism, lawsuits and the approval of President Donald Trump. His promotion to the position of commander in chief of the Border Patrol, as the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, called him, was parallel to Trump’s discontent with the pace of migrant expulsions, insufficient to achieve his goal of carrying out the “largest deportation in history.” The Republican criticized the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) for not making more arrests and, to remedy this, last June he turned to Bovino, a defender of more aggressive tactics, who has been present in the main confrontation scenarios.

Minneapolis is Bovino’s last stop, but his face began to be known in June of last year, when Trump put him in charge of the anti-immigration campaign in the city of Los Angeles, which resulted in thousands of arrests. Chicago, Charlotte (in North Carolina) and New Orleans would follow.

During the operation in California, agents broke 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 was unprecedented. Bovino’s career rise illustrated the radical change that immigration policy has undergone in Trump’s second term.

In September, the Republican put him in charge of the Operation Midway Blitz, in Chicago, where his controversial methods in detaining migrants met with strong popular opposition. Bovino ordered his officers to violently charge at the protesters and he himself was recorded throwing tear gas. A federal judge in Chicago, who had banned those methods, found that Bovino lied under oath during statements related to his operations and forced him to give a daily account of his actions, although an appeals court overturned that measure.

Under Bovino’s orders, officers routinely fired pepper bullets and tear gas, and have used a helicopter to raid a house in an operation more typical of Hollywood studios. Bovino, in fact, is presented as one of the tough characters in action movies. Dressed in his tactical operations uniform, he likes to appear in videos and photos carrying high-caliber weapons. In his profile image on the social network

He already made his first steps with propaganda in his previous position, as head of the Border Patrol in the El Centro sector, in southeastern California. In September 2020, shortly after taking charge, his social media team posted a fictional video showing a supposed migrant sneaking into the United States and murdering the first person he encounters. The video had to be removed due to the controversy it raised.

meteoric rise

Bovino grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, located in the Appalachian mountain range. He studied Natural Resources and Public Administration and in 1996 he joined the Border Patrol. In 2004 he was appointed deputy chief of the Special Operations Division at the Washington headquarters of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to which the Border Patrol depends. In 2018 he was assigned as patrol chief of the New Orleans sector.

From his position in the town of El Centro (California), Bovino was very critical of the entry of migrants during the mandate of Democrat Joe Biden. On two occasions he went to Congress to testify and on one of them he was urged to retire. On the contrary, at 55 years old he has had a meteoric rise and could rise even higher, according to speculation. Bovino went from being on the verge of being forced to retire to becoming a hero of the Trumpist MAGA movement (Make America Great Again). Republican government officials describe him as “a tough guy,” a badass.

With just a month left before Trump returned to the White House, Bovino made a point to earn the new president’s trust. Two weeks before the inauguration, the official sent dozens of agents to Kern County, in California’s Central Valley, to make arrests at gas stations and on the highway, terrorizing the migrant community in the agricultural heart of the most populous state in the country.

Bovino then announced that the operation was aimed at arresting criminals, but only one of the 78 detainees had a criminal record. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) then filed a lawsuit on behalf of the United Farm Workers union and five Kern County residents, accusing the agency of racial discrimination and coercing at least 40 detained migrants to “accept voluntary deportation.”

The use of racial profiling to make arrests — prioritizing people with darker skin color or who do not speak English well — is a pattern that has drawn criticism in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. Bovino has denied the accusations and this week declared in Minnesota that the operations “are legal, are targeted and focus on people who represent a serious threat.” “They are not random nor are they politically motivated,” he asserted.

In statements to Daily Mailhis sister, Natalie Bovino, said that one of the official’s hobbies is wrestling. “Greg admires Rocky Marciano,” he declared. “When you prepare to face something difficult, you watch the video Rocky Marciano was a beast. And Greg is motivated not to stop.”

His taste for violence has earned him enemies and the Administration works hard to defend him. A trial was held this week in Chicago against Juan Espinoza Martínez, 37, for allegedly offering a $10,000 reward for Bovino’s life, according to prosecutors. Defense attorneys said the defendant, a carpenter with about $20 in his bank account, sent messages that amounted to “neighborhood gossip” to his brother and a friend, who turned out to be a government informant. With less than four hours of deliberation, the jury found him not guilty.