Role: Chief Patrol Agent, U.S. Border Patrol El Centro Sector, California; designated “Commander-at-Large” by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, 2025–January 2026
Agency: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) / Border Patrol
Status: Announced retirement March 16, 2026 (formal paperwork not confirmed as of reporting)
Priority: P0

Background

Career

Gregory Bovino joined the U.S. Border Patrol in approximately 1996 and built a career in the agency’s El Centro, California sector, which covers southeastern California including Imperial County and portions of the Coachella Valley. He rose through the ranks to become chief patrol agent of the El Centro Sector.

He was removed from the El Centro command in 2023 under the Biden administration after:

• Posting a photograph of himself posing with an M4 assault rifle deemed inappropriate for a sector chief
• Social media posts considered inappropriate for his senior position
• Sworn congressional testimony he and other sector chiefs gave about the state of the border during a record migrant surge

Thirty minutes after his second congressional hearing, Bovino said, he was removed from his El Centro position and asked whether he would retire. He declined.

The change of administration in January 2025 turned Bovino into a prominent figure in Trump’s immigration enforcement apparatus. He was reinstated, his assault rifle profile photo returned online, and he was designated Commander-at-Large by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — a role that positioned him outside the typical DHS chain of command and allowed him to report directly to Noem.

Source: AP/PBS NewsHour, January 2026; Boston Globe, January 2026; VC Star, March 2026.

Documented Actions

1. Los Angeles Fashion District Sweeps (Summer 2025)

Bovino led the Trump administration’s first sustained blitz of a U.S. city, beginning in the Los Angeles Fashion District. Operations included:

• Agents positioned in a rental truck who emerged in a Home Depot parking lot to arrest day laborers
• Workplace and residential sweeps targeting immigrant communities
• Smashing car windows when drivers refused to open them during stops
• Blasting the door off a Huntington Park, California home in an early-morning raid

The Los Angeles operations sparked five days of protests. The Trump administration responded by calling in the National Guard and Marines. Further operations followed in Kern County, California.

Bovino described his approach: “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.”

Sources: NBC News; AP/PBS NewsHour, January 2026.

2. Chicago Operation Midway Blitz — And Federal Defiance of Internal Command (September–November 2025)

Bovino led Operation Midway Blitz, a sustained immigration enforcement operation in Chicago beginning in September 2025 that produced approximately 3,000 arrests in northern Illinois between June 11 and October 22.

Tactics documented in court proceedings:

• Agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to storm an apartment complex; 37 immigrants arrested, only 2 of whom were gang members despite the operation being justified as targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua
• Chemical agents deployed near a public school during a residential neighborhood raid
• A Chicago City Council member was handcuffed at a hospital
• Bovino personally threw tear gas canisters into crowds without warning and in violation of a court-issued TRO (see Action 3 below)

Defiance of ICE chain of command:

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons directed Bovino to focus on “targeted” arrests rather than large-scale sweeps. An email obtained by NBC News documented this directive. Bovino explicitly refused, saying he “declined” and stated he reports to Corey Lewandowski — a Trump political operative and top aide to Secretary Noem — not to the ICE director.

This deliberate circumvention of the statutory immigration enforcement chain of command to report to a political operative rather than law enforcement leadership is documented in federal records.

Sources: NBC News; WTTW; The Independent; WBEZ Chicago.

3. Federal Judge Finds Bovino Committed Perjury — Chicago Use of Force Lawsuit (November 2025)

A federal lawsuit (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, N.D. Illinois, Judge Sara Ellis) challenged federal immigration agents’ use of force tactics during Operation Midway Blitz. Judge Ellis ordered Bovino to submit to a sworn deposition, which lasted three days.

The October 23 incident: Bovino personally deployed tear gas canisters into a crowd in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood — without giving a verbal warning to disperse, in violation of the court’s temporary restraining order. DHS officials and Bovino publicly claimed the tear gas was justified because a protester had hit him in the head with a rock before the deployment.

Video evidence disproved this claim. During his deposition, Bovino was confronted with the video and ultimately admitted he was not struck by the rock until after he had already thrown the tear gas.

Judge Ellis’s findings (November 2025 preliminary injunction ruling):

“Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied.”

“I find the defendant’s evidence simply not credible.”

“[The government’s depiction of Chicago] is untrue.”

“Protesters were threatened and harmed for exercising their constitutional rights.”

The tactics and behavior “shocks the conscience.”

The judge issued a preliminary injunction restricting federal immigration agents’ use of riot control weapons indefinitely and blocking “all chilling of First Amendment rights.” The Seventh Circuit later paused the order (calling it “overbroad”) but explicitly noted “voluminous and robust factual findings” about First Amendment violations and stated the pause was not a final ruling on the merits.

Beyond the rock-throwing incident, Judge Ellis found Bovino was evasive throughout the deposition, giving “cute” answers or outright lying in multiple exchanges, including denying using force in a separate incident captured on video.

Court record: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, N.D. Illinois (Judge Sara Ellis); preliminary injunction November 2025.
Sources: Block Club Chicago; Above the Law; All Rise News; ABC News; Capitol News Illinois.

4. Minneapolis Operation Metro Surge — Deaths of Two U.S. Citizens (December 2025–January 2026)

Beginning in December 2025, Bovino was deployed to Minnesota to lead what DHS described as the “largest-ever” federal immigration enforcement operation, dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

Deaths of U.S. citizens under Bovino’s command:

• Renée Nicole Good, 37, a mother of three who had recently moved to Minneapolis, was shot three times — including in the head — by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on January 7, 2026, as she moved her vehicle during an encounter with federal agents. A DHS spokesperson defended the shooting as self-defense.

• Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, a former ICU nurse, was shot and killed by two CBP officers on January 24, 2026 — two weeks after Good’s death. According to a DHS report, both officers fired multiple times.

• Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, was wounded by a federal agent in a third shooting during the same operation, between the two fatal incidents.

None of the agents involved in any of the three shootings have been criminally charged.

Additional conduct during Operation Metro Surge documented in the Minnesota Attorney General’s lawsuit:

• Bovino was seen on video lobbing green-smoke canisters into crowds in a Minneapolis park. DHS stated agents were responding to a “hostile crowd.”
• An agent pepper-sprayed a Minnesota Attorney General’s Office attorney at point-blank range as she stood at a safe distance from an arrest scene after identifying herself as an attorney and a witness. (Source: Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint.)
• An agent pointed a gun in the face of a white pastor, handcuffed him, and placed him in a vehicle before releasing him, reportedly saying: “You’re White. You wouldn’t be fun anyway.” (Source: Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint.)

Removal: After the deaths of Good and Pretti, Bovino was removed as Commander-at-Large and returned to his El Centro Sector post. Tom Homan was deployed to Minnesota to assume oversight.

State lawsuit: Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty, and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans sued the federal government in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging DHS and DOJ blocked state investigators from accessing evidence in all three shooting investigations. The complaint names Bovino as a defendant and alleges he “withheld accurate information and propounded knowingly false information.”

Sources: NBC News; AP/PBS NewsHour; ProPublica; CBS News; Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint (Jan. 2026); The Independent.

5. Evidence Obstruction in Three Citizen Shooting Investigations (January–February 2026)

Following the three shootings, Minnesota state authorities — the BCA, Hennepin County DA, and the Minneapolis and St. Paul city governments — requested standard state-federal investigative cooperation as had been standard practice in previous federal agent shootings.

The Trump administration refused across all three cases:

• The FBI told BCA investigators (February 13, 2026) it would not share investigative materials in the Pretti case
• DHS blocked state law enforcement from “access to any information or evidence” it collected in the Pretti case
• DOJ initially did not open an investigation into Pretti’s death, allowing DHS to investigate its own agents
• BCA investigators were blocked from accessing the crime scene or interviewing the agents involved
• DOJ failed to respond to repeated requests for information across all three cases

A federal judge initially granted an emergency evidence-preservation order (the night of Pretti’s shooting), then reversed it, ruling that “inflammatory statements about Pretti by top administration officials and a potentially compromised crime scene” were not sufficient to block federal agencies from handling evidence.

A DOJ response was required but as of the state lawsuit filing had not been provided. The lawsuit alleges no lawful basis was identified for the refusal — a “dramatic departure from prior long-standing practice.”

Sources: ProPublica; CBS News; The Independent; Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint.

6. Antisemitic Remarks on Federal Conference Call (January 12, 2026)

Five days after Renée Good was shot and killed, a coordination call was held among multiple federal officials to schedule a meeting to address issues related to the massive federal deployment in Minnesota. Bovino was told that Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen — an Orthodox Jew and Trump appointee — was unavailable for a Saturday meeting because he observes the Sabbath.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the call told CBS News, the New York Times, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Bovino responded with:

• Audible frustration that Rosen was not available
• The question: “Do Orthodox criminals also take off on Saturday?”
• Use of the phrase “chosen people” in a disparaging manner

Sources described the remarks as an “antisemitic rant.” The incident occurred as Bovino was pressing the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office to indict more protesters.

The remarks were reported to Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in DOJ, as well as the White House. DHS launched an internal investigation. A DHS spokesperson at the time told the New York Times the agency was “focusing on gossip.”

Evidence tier: Credibly Reported — multiple sources with knowledge of the call; DHS investigation launched; DHS did not deny the underlying allegation, only its characterization.

Sources: CBS News; New York Times (cited); Jewish Telegraphic Agency; ABA Journal; Jewish News UK.

7. Retirement Under Investigation (Announced March 16, 2026)

Bovino announced his intent to retire by end of March 2026 after nearly three decades of service. He told Breitbart Texas he planned to leave the agency in “the coming weeks.”

DHS insiders told the Daily Beast that Bovino was “jumping before he was pushed”:

“He sees where the wind is blowing. He’s got an internal investigation looming, he’s already been sent back to El Centro, and now with [Kristi] Noem out, it’s a sign of things to come. He chose to jump before he was pushed.”

Active investigations at time of retirement announcement:

1. Hennepin County criminal investigation — 13+ incidents under review; Bovino and agents accused of unlawfully targeting immigrants and citizens and violently clashing with protesters
2. DHS internal investigation into antisemitic remarks on the January 12 conference call
3. Minnesota AG civil lawsuit (State of Minnesota et al. v. DHS et al.) naming Bovino as defendant for evidence obstruction in three citizen shootings
4. Chicago Headline Club v. Noem — federal court finding of perjury; injunction (currently paused pending appeal) restricting use of force

Federal officials confirmed that Bovino had not yet submitted formal retirement paperwork as of the reporting.

Sources: VC Star; Latin Times/Daily Beast; NBC News; The Independent.

Democratic Malice Assessment

Cumulative Designation: Active Subversion Campaign Qualifying actions scored: 4 Highest individual DMS: 4 — Active Direction Primary categories: Dissent Suppression, Rule of Law Destruction, Democratic Norm Destruction | # | Action | Category | DMS | Key Evidence | Ideology vs. Malice Determination | |—|——–|———-|—–|————–|————————————| | 1 | Documented perjury in federal court to justify force against First Amendment protesters — personally deployed tear gas in violation of a court TRO; publicly claimed it was in response to a rock thrown at his head before deployment; video evidence disproved the claim; admitted under oath in deposition he was mistaken; federal judge found he “admitted that he lied” multiple times; judge found his testimony “not credible” across multiple incidents; judge issued injunction finding protesters “threatened and harmed for exercising constitutional rights” | Dissent Suppression | 4 — Active Direction | Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, N.D. Ill. (Judge Sara Ellis), preliminary injunction November 2025; Block Club Chicago deposition reporting; ABC News; Above the Law | Malice. Bovino’s perjury was not a minor misremembering — it was a public, repeated, specific claim that a protester had struck him before he deployed gas, used to justify use of force that violated a federal court order. The claim was disproven by video, and he admitted lying under oath across multiple incidents. The ideological path: comply with the court order or challenge it through lawful means. Instead he violated the TRO, lied about the justification, and repeated the lie under oath for three days of deposition before the video forced an admission. A federal judge found his conduct “shocks the conscience.” | | 2 | Evidence obstruction in three citizen shooting investigations — after agents under his command fatally shot two U.S. citizens (Renée Good, January 7, and Alex Pretti, January 24, 2026) and wounded a third person, Bovino and DHS blocked state investigators from accessing evidence; FBI refused to share materials; BCA investigators denied crime scene access; DOJ failed to respond to repeated requests; state of Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Hennepin County sued in federal court; Bovino named as defendant in complaint alleging “withheld accurate information and propounded knowingly false information” | Rule of Law Destruction | 4 — Active Direction | Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint (2026); ProPublica reporting; CBS News; The Independent; BCA Superintendent Drew Evans statement (February 13, 2026); federal district court records | Malice. After agents under his command killed two U.S. citizens in three weeks during an immigration operation he led, Bovino and his chain of command blocked the standard state-federal investigative cooperation that had applied in all prior federal agent shooting cases. The ideological path: cooperate with normal joint investigative procedures. The refusal across all three cases — with no lawful basis identified — is documented in a federal lawsuit. Naming Bovino specifically in the complaint’s allegation of “knowingly false information” establishes his personal nexus to the evidence obstruction rather than treating it as a systemic DHS response alone. | | 3 | Defying internal law enforcement chain of command to report to political operative — when ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons directed Bovino to focus on “targeted” arrests rather than large-scale sweeps, Bovino explicitly “declined” and stated he reports to Corey Lewandowski (a Trump political operative and Noem aide) rather than to the ICE director; this placed a career law enforcement operation under the direct authority of a political operative, bypassing the statutory immigration enforcement chain of command | Democratic Norm Destruction | 4 — Active Direction | Email obtained by NBC News documenting Lyons directive; Bovino’s “declined” response; NBC News reporting on Lewandowski chain of command | Malice. A career law enforcement officer defying a direct operational directive from the statutory head of ICE — and declaring that he answers to a political operative instead — is not a bureaucratic chain-of-command dispute. It is the conversion of a federal law enforcement operation into a political instrument. The norm being destroyed: law enforcement authority operating under law enforcement command, not political command. Bovino explicitly articulated the political command structure while refusing the operational directive. | | 4 | Systemic suppression of First Amendment activity across multiple cities — documented pattern spanning Los Angeles (rental truck ambushes of day laborers, door-blasting raid), Chicago (Black Hawk helicopter rappel into apartment building, chemical agents near school, City Council member handcuffed at hospital, force against journalists and clergy), and Minneapolis (smoke canisters into crowds, AG attorney pepper-sprayed at point-blank range) — federal judge found “ample evidence that agents intended to cause protesters harm”; multiple federal and state lawsuits | Dissent Suppression | 4 — Active Direction | Federal judge’s preliminary injunction findings (November 2025); Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint; NBC News documentation of Chicago helicopter raid; WBEZ; AP | Malice. The geographic and tactical pattern — the same escalating playbook deployed against protesters, journalists, and clergy across Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis — demonstrates this is not situational excess but operational doctrine. Bovino specifically said the tactics were intentional and appropriate. A federal judge called them conscience-shocking and found First Amendment violations across the Chicago operation. | Ideology vs. Malice — what is NOT scored here: Bovino’s immigration enforcement philosophy, his support for strict interior enforcement, his “turn and burn” operational tempo as a general immigration enforcement posture, his role directing lawful immigration arrests, his criticism of sanctuary city policies, his congressional testimony on border conditions under Biden, or his general career as a Border Patrol sector chief are ideology and professional exercise of law enforcement authority. The DMA scores the specific documented conduct: perjury before a federal court, evidence obstruction in citizen shootings, defiance of law enforcement chain of command to report to political operative, and the documented suppression of First Amendment activity across multiple cities — all grounded in federal court findings, state lawsuits, or internal government records. Assessment basis: The perjury finding rests on a federal judge’s ruling — the court is the primary source. The evidence obstruction rests on a state-federal lawsuit naming Bovino as defendant with a specific allegation of “knowingly false information.” The Lewandowski chain-of-command defiance is documented in NBC News reporting of a government email. The systemic suppression pattern is documented by the same federal judge’s preliminary injunction findings and the Minnesota AG lawsuit. Legal disclaimer: The Democratic Malice Assessment is an analytical framework applying defined criteria to documented public conduct. Designations are evaluative conclusions, not statements of criminal guilt. No DMS score constitutes a finding of criminal liability. The factual predicates are cited to primary sources; the evaluative conclusions are protected expression under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.

Pattern Analysis

Bovino represents the Trump administration’s deliberate experiment in using the Border Patrol — a border security agency — as an interior enforcement force in Democratic-led cities, deploying military-style tactics against civilian populations with minimal accountability to either the law enforcement chain of command or the federal courts.

The pattern across all three city deployments is consistent: large-scale sweeps rather than targeted enforcement; deployment of military tactical assets (Black Hawk helicopters, chemical agents) in residential neighborhoods; use of force against protesters, journalists, and clergy; and escalating confrontation with local authorities. When ICE — the agency actually responsible for interior enforcement under statutory authority — directed him to change tactics, he refused and reported to a political operative instead.

The Chicago federal court proceeding is the most precisely documented accountability record: a federal judge watched “hours and hours and hours of bodycam video and video from helicopters” and found his testimony not credible, found him to have admitted lying, and found the government’s account of Chicago “untrue.” That judicial finding — by a Trump-era case against the executive branch — is distinct from political criticism.

The Minneapolis episode added two dimensions the Chicago record does not have: the deaths of two U.S. citizens, and the subsequent cover-up through evidence obstruction that required the state of Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Hennepin County to sue in federal court.

His retirement announcement, made amid multiple active investigations, follows a pattern documented by DHS insiders as strategic exit before formal firing.

Severity Assessment

Immediate harm: Critical — deaths of two U.S. citizens under his command; multiple active criminal and civil investigations; federal court finding of perjury; suppression of First Amendment activity documented by federal court
Democratic erosion: Critical — bypassing law enforcement chain of command to report to political operative; evidence obstruction in citizen shooting investigations; converting federal law enforcement into a political instrument; normalized military-style tactics against civilian protesters
Authoritarian markers: Direct control through political operative rather than statutory chain; perjury to justify use of force against protesters; evidence obstruction after citizen deaths; deploying military assets (Black Hawk helicopter, chemical agents) in civilian urban neighborhoods; documented pattern of escalation against First Amendment activity

Accountability Status

Current status: Announced retirement March 16, 2026; formal retirement paperwork not confirmed; returned to El Centro Sector chief role in January 2026 after removal as Commander-at-Large
Legal exposure:

• Active: Hennepin County criminal investigation (13+ incidents); Minnesota AG civil lawsuit naming him as defendant; DHS internal investigation (antisemitic remarks); Chicago Headline Club v. Noem still in litigation
• Federal court finding: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem — federal judge found he committed perjury in sworn deposition (no criminal referral made as of reporting)
• Federal obstruction: FBI and DOJ refusal to cooperate with state investigations; Minnesota state criminal investigation ongoing

Investigations status: Multiple active — Hennepin County DA (criminal), DHS internal (administrative), state civil lawsuit. Federal government has not cooperated with state-level accountability proceedings and has asserted federal agents cannot be prosecuted by state authorities for actions in the course of their duties.

Why Bovino Is a High-Priority Accountability Subject

Bovino is not a policymaker. He is a career law enforcement officer who chose — with full knowledge of what he was doing — to:

1. Deploy military-style force against civilians exercising First Amendment rights
2. Lie about those deployments under oath to a federal court
3. Defy his law enforcement chain of command to take orders from a political operative
4. Lead operations during which two U.S. citizens were killed and subsequently block state investigators from accessing evidence

Each of those actions involves an individual choice, not bureaucratic constraint. The federal court record, the state lawsuits, the internal government emails, and the deposition transcript provide unusually direct documentation of a senior federal law enforcement officer operating outside legal and institutional boundaries.

For accountability purposes: Bovino’s retirement — if confirmed — does not close the Hennepin County criminal investigation, the Minnesota AG civil lawsuit, or the Chicago Headline Club litigation. The evidence record exists independent of his employment status.