Gregory Bovino — Border Patrol Commander-at-Large, Trump Immigration Crackdown
This article has been corrected. 10 corrections — see Corrections at the end of this article.
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: Retired end of March 2026 (retirement announced March 16, 2026; confirmed in NYT exit interview, published March 2026)
Priority: P0
Basis for Inclusion
Subject classification: Non-Elected Government Official — Career federal law enforcement, designated to senior operational command by political appointment.
Inclusion criterion: Anchor E — documented official non-elected federal authority. Bovino commanded DHS’s declared “largest-ever” interior immigration enforcement operation, exercising operational authority over hundreds of federal agents across multiple cities. He was specifically designated Commander-at-Large and reported directly to Secretary Noem, bypassing the normal ICE chain of command. In a sworn three-day deposition in a federal lawsuit, he admitted under oath that his public account of a key use-of-force incident was wrong — a finding that a district court’s preliminary injunction order characterized as him having “admitted that he lied” (the preliminary injunction was subsequently vacated by the Seventh Circuit on mootness grounds; the deposition record remains). He is named as a defendant in a Minnesota Attorney General lawsuit alleging evidence obstruction in three citizen shootings and in an ACLU/UFW federal lawsuit over Kern County operations.
This profile is NOT based on: Immigration enforcement as a policy priority, Border Patrol’s institutional mission, conservative positions on border security, or the general exercise of lawful immigration enforcement authority.
Speech characterization: Bovino’s public statements about immigration policy, his support for strict enforcement, and his criticism of sanctuary city policies are documented as context only. They are not the basis for inclusion. What is documented as accountability-relevant is specific conduct: false sworn testimony in a federal deposition regarding use-of-force against First Amendment protesters; evidence obstruction documented in state and federal lawsuits; defiance of internal chain of command to report to a political operative; and deployment of military-style force against civilians documented in federal court proceedings and the Minnesota AG lawsuit.
Background
Career
Gregory Kent Bovino (born March 27, 1970, San Bernardino County, California) holds a bachelor’s degree in natural resource conservation from Western Carolina University (1993), a master’s in public administration from Appalachian State University, and a second master’s degree from the National War College.
He joined the U.S. Border Patrol in 1996, initially assigned to El Paso, Texas. By 2008 he had become an assistant chief at the Yuma, Arizona sector, and was that year promoted to patrol agent in charge of the Blythe, California station. He subsequently served as sector chief of the New Orleans sector before taking command of the El Centro Sector, which covers southeastern California including Imperial County and portions of the Coachella Valley.
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.
SourceAP/PBS NewsHour, January 2026; Boston Globe, January 2026; VC Star, March 2026; Wikipedia (Gregory Bovino); Britannica (Gregory Bovino).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. He held the Commander-at-Large title from approximately October 2025 until January 26, 2026.
Pre-Appointment: Operation Return to Sender, Kern County (January 7, 2025)
Before being designated Commander-at-Large, Bovino sent 65 El Centro agents into California’s Kern County on January 7, 2025 — six hours north of the border and the day after Congress certified Trump’s election victory — to conduct “Operation Return to Sender,” a weeklong sweep of predominantly Latino areas of Bakersfield and surrounding agricultural communities.
The operation detained people at a Home Depot, a farm-worker convenience store, and on roads running between farms. Agents stopped drivers on growers’ private property. Bovino said agents had a “predetermined list of targets,” many with criminal records. Subsequent data reviewed by CalMatters showed a broader net than that account suggested.
SourcesCalMatters, “Border Patrol chief offered misleading details on Kern County raid,” April 2025; ACLU NorCal case page, UFW v. Noem; Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, 1:25-cv-00246 docket.On February 26, 2025, the ACLU of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties, together with Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, filed a federal lawsuit — United Farm Workers v. Noem, 1:25-cv-00246 (E.D. Cal.) — naming Bovino as a defendant and alleging agents indiscriminately stopped and arrested people based on race and perceived immigration status, violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. A preliminary injunction issued in April 2025 barred Border Patrol from stopping people without reasonable suspicion in the Eastern District of California; defendants including Bovino filed a notice of appeal on June 26, 2025. As of this writing, the case remains active.
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.
SourcesNBC News; AP/PBS NewsHour, January 2026.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.”
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.
SourcesNBC News; WTTW; The Independent; WBEZ Chicago.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.
3. Chicago Use of Force Lawsuit — Deposition, District Court Findings, and Seventh Circuit Vacatur (2025–2026)
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 district court additionally ordered Bovino to appear in court daily to answer questions about compliance with the TRO — a requirement the Seventh Circuit blocked by writ of mandamus, finding the daily-appearance order placed the court “in the position of an inquisitor rather than that of a neutral adjudicator.” Noem v. Ellis, No. 25-2936 (7th Cir. 2025).
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.
Final resolution of the case:
The Seventh Circuit initially stayed the preliminary injunction, noting it was “overbroad” while acknowledging “voluminous and robust factual findings” about First Amendment violations. On January 22, 2026, Judge Ellis dismissed the case without prejudice and decertified the class (contrary to plaintiffs’ request for dismissal with prejudice). On March 5, 2026, the Seventh Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction and its factfinding in full, granting the government’s motion. The court vacated specifically to prevent the “now-unreviewable injunction from producing adverse legal consequences in future litigation” — meaning the formal judicial findings in the order, including the characterizations of Bovino’s testimony, are no longer available as legal authority. Judge Easterbrook dissented from the vacatur.
“We VACATE the district court’s order granting the preliminary injunction.” — Seventh Circuit, per curiam, March 5, 2026
The mandate issued April 27, 2026. The litigation is concluded.
What remains of the record: The underlying deposition transcript, in which Bovino admitted under oath that the sequence of events was different from his public claim, is part of the court record. The video evidence establishing that Bovino was not struck by the rock before he deployed gas continues to exist. What was vacated is the preliminary injunction order and its formal judicial characterizations — not the facts on which it rested.
SourcesBlock Club Chicago; Above the Law; All Rise News; ABC News; Capitol News Illinois; Seventh Circuit opinion, No. 25-3023 (March 5, 2026); Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, case 47034; Loevy + Loevy case page (CHC v. Noem); Justia, No. 25-3023-2026-03-05.Court record: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-12173 (N.D. Ill., Judge Sara Ellis); preliminary injunction November 2025; dismissed without prejudice January 22, 2026. Affirmed on appeal: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, No. 25-3023, 2026 WL 622677 (7th Cir. March 5, 2026) (per curiam; Easterbrook, J., dissenting). CourtListener: docket 71559589 (district), 71894273 (appellate).
4. Operation Charlotte’s Web — Rifle-Muzzle Window Smash on Two American Mothers (November 2025)
Between the Chicago deployment and the Minneapolis surge, Bovino ran an immigration sweep in Charlotte, North Carolina known as Operation Charlotte’s Web. The most fully documented incident from that operation is the arrest of two American mothers, Tatyana Reisini (a U.S. citizen of Ecuadorean descent) and Kristen Roos, on their way to a Christmas market.
The sequence, reconstructed by The New York Times from 911 recordings, court records, and neighbor video (July 2026):
- After spotting a vehicle full of immigration agents at an outdoor mall, the women (part of a local mothers’ network watching for ICE) parked ~20 yards away and joined other protesters yelling at the agents. Agents moved vehicles in front of and behind Reisini’s Acura and ordered the women to leave.
- The women drove off and continued their trip. Two unmarked cars followed them. They called 911. An operator told them to find the nearest gas or police station; they didn’t know where one was and wound up on a dead-end street. The unmarked cars blocked them in.
- On the 911 recording, Reisini screamed: “We need help right now… They’re going to \[expletive\] hurt us!”
- A masked agent then smashed the driver’s side window with the barrel of his rifle, which was pointed toward Reisini — captured on video by a nearby resident.
- When Reisini said “We didn’t do anything,” an agent replied: “Yes, you did. You impeded. 18 U.S.C. 111. Driving erratic.”
- The women were zip-tied, taken to the local FBI building, and issued citations under 18 U.S.C. § 111.
- The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte later withdrew the charges as legally deficient. University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Hessick told the Times the field agents’ theory misread the statute, which requires use or threat of force, not mere interference.
Bovino’s on-record conduct after the arrests:
- On X, from the account
@USBPChiefELC, he praised the arrests publicly as “excellent arrests for assault.” - He amplified a far-right social-media post (from
@iAnonPatriot) that called the two women “liberal terrorists.” - Asked by the Times about the agent’s decision to smash a window with the muzzle of a rifle pointed at a driver, Bovino said: “I’m more worried about the officer getting hurt or killed or the public getting hurt or killed, not necessarily the suspect.”
SourcesNew York Times, “They Were Charged With Assaulting ICE Agents. The Cases Are Crumbling,” Mike McIntire, Danny Hakim, Alexandra Berzon, Jazmine Ulloa, and Lauren McCarthy, July 18, 2026; Bovino posts from @USBPChiefELC (Nov. 2025); 911 recording and neighbor video referenced in the Times report.The Charlotte record is the clearest documented example of Bovino personally amplifying — as the responsible commander — arrests that the Department’s own prosecutors then had to abandon as legally unsound, while simultaneously endorsing the use of a rifle muzzle as a window-breaking tool with a driver directly in front of it.
5. 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. The same officer, months earlier (June 2025), had been dragged approximately 100 yards by an SUV driven by Roberto Carlos Muñoz-Guatemala during an arrest — one of only four assault-on-officer cases the government has won at jury trial across its entire 18 U.S.C. § 111 immigration-enforcement docket (New York Times, July 18, 2026).
- 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 and in New York Times reporting:**
- 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.)
- Bovino personally shoved a high-school special-education assistant, Quentin Williams (January 7, 2026). Hours after Renée Good was killed, Williams was directing students to their rides after school at Roosevelt High School (about three miles from the shooting). Federal agents arrived on campus arresting someone; a crowd gathered. Bovino ran up and shoved Williams. Videos reviewed by the Times show agents then yanking Williams by the hair, tackling him, and — per his account — choking him. He wrote later that day: “I could not help but think of George Floyd. I was so scared for my life.” Two weeks later, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis charged Williams and 15 others under 18 U.S.C. § 111. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the charges on X, posting photos of the shackled defendants and citing the statute while omitting its “forcibly” element. A sworn DHS affidavit claimed Williams tried to “grab and pick up” a Border Patrol agent; video the Times reviewed did not support that claim. Prosecutors reduced the charge to a misdemeanor and ultimately dropped it. Bovino publicly called Williams and the others “rioters and anarchists” who had failed to follow orders. (Source: New York Times, July 18, 2026.)
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.
SourcesNBC News; AP/PBS NewsHour; ProPublica; CBS News; Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint (Jan. 2026); The Independent.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.”
6. 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.
SourcesProPublica; CBS News; The Independent; Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint.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.”
7. 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.”
SourcesCBS News; New York Times (cited); Jewish Telegraphic Agency; ABA Journal; Jewish News UK.Evidence tier: Credibly Reported — multiple sources with knowledge of the call; DHS investigation launched; DHS did not deny the underlying allegation, only its characterization.
8. 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 proceedings at time of retirement announcement:
- Hennepin County criminal investigation — 13+ incidents under review; Bovino and agents accused of unlawfully targeting immigrants and citizens and violently clashing with protesters
- DHS/CBP internal investigation into antisemitic remarks on the January 12 conference call
- Minnesota AG civil lawsuit (State of Minnesota et al. v. DHS et al.) naming Bovino as defendant for evidence obstruction in three citizen shootings
- Chicago Headline Club v. Noem — case was in the Seventh Circuit at the time of the retirement announcement; subsequently concluded: district court dismissed without prejudice (January 22, 2026); Seventh Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction and factfinding (March 5, 2026)
- United Farm Workers v. Noem, 1:25-cv-00246 (E.D. Cal.) — Kern County operations suit naming Bovino as defendant; active
SourcesVC Star; Latin Times/Daily Beast; NBC News; The Independent; New York Times (exit interview, March 2026); The Guardian, “Ex-border patrol chief defends his record after exit,” March 24, 2026.
9. Exit Interview: Fatality Warnings Confirmed, No Remorse (March 2026)
In an exit interview with the New York Times published around March 24, 2026 — confirmed by The Guardian’s reporting the same day — Bovino made several on-record admissions that materially extend the evidentiary record:
- He stated “I wish I’d caught even more illegal aliens” and “We went as hard as we could, but there’s always a creative and innovative solution to catching even more.”
- He acknowledged his retirement at the end of March was “not entirely voluntary” — directly contradicting his public framing of the retirement as self-initiated.
- He stood by his claim that Alex Pretti wanted to “massacre law enforcement” when agents killed him — even though video footage at the scene showed Pretti was unarmed at the moments agents shot him to death.
- He confirmed that he was warned before Minneapolis that his tactics could result in fatalities and that he recalled replying: “It’s possible, yes.” He then confirmed he proceeded with the same tactics.
- He dismissed the antisemitic-remarks investigation as accusations made by “troglodytes.”
SourcesThe Guardian, “Ex-border patrol chief defends his record after exit: ‘I wish I’d caught more illegal aliens,'” March 24, 2026 (citing New York Times exit interview); New York Times (exit interview, March 2026).The admission regarding the fatality warning is significant: it places Bovino’s awareness of lethal risk on the record before Renée Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed, and confirms he did not alter his operational approach in response to that warning.
10. Post-Record Defense: Attacking DOJ Prosecutors Who Dropped Failed Cases (July 2026)
Interviewed by The New York Times for its July 18, 2026 investigation into 18 U.S.C. § 111 immigration-enforcement prosecutions — a review that found the government had lost or abandoned nearly half of more than 400 resolved assault cases — Bovino, then already announced-out, publicly attacked the federal prosecutors who had dropped charges he championed:
- He said too many “worthless” federal prosecutors had “chickened out” by abandoning assault cases.
- He said more protesters and immigrants should have been prosecuted, not fewer: “We were being overly judicious in who we charged with 18 U.S.C. 111.”
- Asked specifically about the agent who smashed Tatyana Reisini’s driver-side window with a rifle muzzle pointed at her in Charlotte, he said he was “more worried about the officer getting hurt or killed or the public getting hurt or killed, not necessarily the suspect.”
SourcesNew York Times, “They Were Charged With Assaulting ICE Agents. The Cases Are Crumbling,” July 18, 2026.Read against the resolved record — 213 of the government’s own § 111 cases lost or abandoned, judges repeatedly finding evidence destroyed, testimony contradicted by video, and grand jury procedures mishandled — Bovino’s on-record position is that the enforcement dragnet should have been broader still, and that the professional prosecutors who declined to bring or continue unsound cases were the problem. See 18 U.S.C. § 111 Assault Prosecutions in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — Docket Collapse and Judicial Rebukes for the full statutory-abuse pattern.
Democratic Malice Assessment
Cumulative Designation: Active Subversion Campaign
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Qualifying actions scored | 4 |
| Highest individual DMS | 4 — Active Direction |
| Primary categories | Dissent Suppression, Rule of Law Destruction, Democratic Norm Destruction |
Scored Action 1: Documented false sworn testimony to justify force against First Amendment…
Category: Dissent Suppression
DMS: 4 — Active Direction
Action: Documented false sworn testimony 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 that the sequence was different from his public account; the district court’s preliminary injunction order stated he “admitted that he lied” and found his testimony “not credible” across multiple incidents; the court found protesters “threatened and harmed for exercising constitutional rights.” Note on case outcome: the district court’s preliminary injunction was vacated by the Seventh Circuit on March 5, 2026 (No. 25-3023, 2026 WL 622677); the vacated order is no longer available as legal authority. The underlying deposition record and video evidence remain part of the court record. Post-record conduct (July 2026): after DOJ prosecutors dropped hundreds of the § 111 assault cases his agents originated, Bovino publicly called those prosecutors “worthless” and said they had “chickened out,” attempting to relitigate the failed cases in the press.
Key Evidence: Three-day sworn deposition, Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-12173 (N.D. Ill.); video evidence establishing pre-deployment sequence; district court preliminary injunction order, November 2025 (vacated by 7th Cir. No. 25-3023, March 5, 2026); Block Club Chicago deposition reporting; ABC News; Above the Law; New York Times (July 18, 2026)
Ideology vs. Malice Determination: Bovino’s false account 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 under oath across three days of deposition that the sequence was different. The ideological path: comply with the court order or challenge it through lawful means. Instead he violated the TRO, falsely described the justification publicly, and maintained that account under oath until the video forced an admission. His subsequent public position that the prosecutors who declined to press the unsound cases are the problem — not the underlying misconduct — is a continued, in-his-own-voice endorsement of the same conduct after the record was clear.
Scored Action 2: Evidence obstruction in three citizen shooting investigations
Category: Rule of Law Destruction
DMS: 4 — Active Direction
Action: 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”
Key Evidence: Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint (2026); ProPublica reporting; CBS News; The Independent; BCA Superintendent Drew Evans statement (February 13, 2026); federal district court records
Ideology vs. Malice Determination: 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.
Scored Action 3: Defying internal law enforcement chain of command to report to political…
Category: Democratic Norm Destruction
DMS: 4 — Active Direction
Action: 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
Key Evidence: Email obtained by NBC News documenting Lyons directive; Bovino’s “declined” response; NBC News reporting on Lewandowski chain of command
Ideology vs. Malice Determination: 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.
Scored Action 4: Systemic suppression of First Amendment activity across multiple cities
Category: Dissent Suppression
DMS: 4 — Active Direction
Action: 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), Charlotte (Operation Charlotte’s Web: two American mothers penned in on a dead-end street by unmarked federal vehicles; agent smashed the driver-side window with a rifle muzzle pointed at the driver; Bovino publicly endorsed the arrests as “excellent” and amplified a post branding the women “liberal terrorists”; U.S. Attorney later withdrew the charges), and Minneapolis (smoke canisters into crowds, AG attorney pepper-sprayed at point-blank range; Bovino personally shoved and helped tackle a high-school special-ed assistant, Quentin Williams, on the same day Renée Good was killed) — district court found “ample evidence that agents intended to cause protesters harm” (in the preliminary injunction order, since vacated by the 7th Circuit on mootness grounds); multiple federal and state lawsuits; the government’s own § 111 assault-charge record has since collapsed, with 213 of ~400 resolved cases lost or abandoned.
Key Evidence: District court preliminary injunction findings, Chicago Headline Club v. Noem (November 2025, vacated March 5, 2026 by 7th Cir. No. 25-3023); Minnesota AG First Amended Complaint; NBC News documentation of Chicago helicopter raid; WBEZ; AP; New York Times, “They Were Charged With Assaulting ICE Agents. The Cases Are Crumbling” (July 18, 2026), including 911 recording, neighbor video, and Bovino’s @USBPChiefELC posts.
Ideology vs. Malice Determination: The geographic and tactical pattern — the same escalating playbook deployed against protesters, journalists, clergy, mothers, and school staff across Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, and Minneapolis — demonstrates this is not situational excess but operational doctrine. Bovino specifically said the tactics were intentional and appropriate; in Charlotte he publicly celebrated arrests his own agency’s prosecutors then had to abandon; in Minneapolis he personally shoved a school staff member helping students to their rides. The district court found the Chicago tactics conscience-shocking (characterization in the preliminary injunction, since vacated); the Charlotte and Williams incidents establish Bovino’s own hands-on conduct — not merely subordinates’ — as part of the pattern. The government’s own prosecution record confirms systemic overreach: 213 of ~400 resolved § 111 assault cases lost or abandoned.
What Is NOT Scored
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: false sworn testimony in a federal deposition to justify TRO-violating use of force, evidence obstruction in citizen shooting investigations, defiance of law enforcement chain of command to report to a political operative, and the documented suppression of First Amendment activity across multiple cities — all grounded in deposition records, state and federal lawsuits, or internal government records.
Assessment Basis
The finding that “Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied” was made in the district court’s preliminary injunction order in Chicago Headline Club v. Noem (N.D. Ill., November 2025). That order was subsequently vacated by the Seventh Circuit on March 5, 2026 (No. 25-3023, 2026 WL 622677), specifically to prevent it from serving as authority in future litigation. What remains of the record: Bovino’s three-day sworn deposition, in which he admitted under oath that the sequence of events was different from his public claim; the video evidence that established this; and the court proceedings documenting the discrepancy. The formal judicial characterizations in the PI order are no longer available as legal authority. The DMA Row 1 description is drawn from the deposition record and proceedings, not from the vacated order as precedent. 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 district court’s preliminary injunction findings (now vacated as a legal instrument, but part of the factual record) 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 four 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, clergy, mothers, and school staff; 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. In Charlotte’s Operation Charlotte’s Web, the model narrowed to two American mothers on their way to a Christmas market: unmarked cars, a dead-end street, a rifle muzzle through a car window, and 18 U.S.C. § 111 charges the U.S. Attorney’s Office later had to withdraw. In Minneapolis, Bovino himself shoved a high-school special-education aide who was directing students to their rides after school.
The Chicago federal court proceeding produced 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.” The district court’s preliminary injunction containing those characterizations was subsequently vacated by the Seventh Circuit on mootness grounds (No. 25-3023, March 5, 2026). What remains: the three-day deposition transcript, the video evidence, and Bovino’s own on-record admissions — a factual record that exists independently of the vacated order’s formal status.
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; false sworn testimony in federal deposition documented in court record; suppression of First Amendment activity documented in federal court proceedings and state lawsuits; personal use of force by Bovino documented in both Chicago (tear-gas throw) and Minneapolis (Williams shove); on-record confirmation he was warned of fatality risk before Minneapolis and proceeded anyway; collapse of the government’s own 18 U.S.C. § 111 assault-charge docket (213 of ~400 resolved cases lost or abandoned per NYT, July 18, 2026)
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; false sworn testimony 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: Retired, end of March 2026. Retirement acknowledged in NYT exit interview as “not entirely voluntary.” Returned to El Centro Sector chief role in January 2026 after removal as Commander-at-Large; retired from that post at end of March.
Legal exposure:
- Active civil suits naming Bovino as defendant:
- United Farm Workers v. Noem, 1:25-cv-00246 (E.D. Cal.) — Kern County operations; ACLU/UFW lawsuit; April 2025 preliminary injunction; defendants including Bovino filed notice of appeal June 26, 2025; case ongoing
- State of Minnesota et al. v. DHS et al. (D.D.C.) — Minnesota AG civil lawsuit; Bovino named defendant; alleges he “withheld accurate information and propounded knowingly false information” in three citizen shooting investigations
- Active criminal/administrative investigations:
- Hennepin County criminal investigation — 13+ incidents under review
- DHS/CBP professional responsibility internal investigation — antisemitic remarks on January 12, 2026 conference call
- Concluded:
- Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-12173 (N.D. Ill.) — district court dismissed without prejudice, January 22, 2026; Seventh Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction and factfinding, No. 25-3023, 2026 WL 622677 (March 5, 2026; Easterbrook, J., dissenting); mandate issued April 27, 2026. The district court’s order and its findings are no longer available as legal authority.
- Federal obstruction (ongoing): FBI and DOJ refusal to cooperate with state investigations in all three citizen shooting cases; Minnesota state criminal investigation ongoing
Investigations status: Multiple active — Hennepin County DA (criminal), DHS internal (administrative), two active civil suits. 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. Bovino’s retirement does not terminate any of these proceedings.
Factual correction requests: If you believe information in this profile is incorrect, please contact factcheck@patriot.university with your name (optional), the specific claim, and any supporting documentation. We review all submissions and correct verified errors promptly.
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:
- Deploy military-style force against civilians exercising First Amendment rights — and, in Chicago and Minneapolis, personally use force himself
- Lie about those deployments under oath to a federal court
- Defy his law enforcement chain of command to take orders from a political operative
- Lead operations during which two U.S. citizens were killed and subsequently block state investigators from accessing evidence
- Publicly celebrate arrests (Charlotte) that his own agency’s prosecutors then had to abandon as legally unsound, and — after the record was clear — attack those prosecutors in the press for declining to bring more of them
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 — confirmed in his own words as “not entirely voluntary” — does not close the Hennepin County criminal investigation, the Minnesota AG civil lawsuit, or the UFW v. Noem litigation. The Chicago Headline Club case concluded with the Seventh Circuit vacating the preliminary injunction on March 5, 2026; the deposition record remains. The evidence record — depositions, video, 911 recordings, court filings, and government emails — exists independent of his employment status.
The March 2026 exit interview added one further data point: Bovino confirmed on record that he was warned before the Minneapolis deployment that his tactics could result in fatalities, and that he replied “It’s possible, yes” before proceeding unchanged. This places his awareness of lethal risk in the record before the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti.
Corrections
Correction [2026-08-21]: (legal claim) The claim that a federal court found Bovino committed perjury was overstated; he actually admitted in deposition that a prior public account was wrong, which a district court’s preliminary injunction order described as him having ‘admitted that he lied,’ and that injunction was later vacated on mootness grounds.
Correction [2026-08-21]: (legal claim) Removed the characterization of Bovino’s sworn statements as criminal ‘perjury’ and the claim that a federal judge specifically ruled his conduct violated the First Amendment, replacing these with more accurate, less legally definitive descriptions of false deposition testimony and court proceedings.
Correction [2026-08-21]: Clarified that Bovino’s Border Patrol career began in El Paso and included postings in Yuma, Blythe, and New Orleans before he took command of El Centro, rather than his career being built primarily in the El Centro sector.
Correction [2026-08-21]: (legal claim) The heading no longer states that a federal judge found Bovino committed perjury, reflecting that the Seventh Circuit vacated the district court’s findings on appeal.
Correction [2026-08-21]: (legal claim) Corrected the description of the Seventh Circuit’s ruling to clarify it blocked a specific daily court-appearance requirement for Bovino via writ of mandamus, rather than broadly pausing the injunction as overbroad. Source: Noem v. Ellis, No. 25-2936 (7th Cir. 2025).
Correction [2026-08-21]: (legal claim) Clarified that the ongoing matters were proceedings rather than formal investigations.
Correction [2026-08-21]: Clarified that the internal investigation into the antisemitic remarks was conducted by DHS and CBP, not DHS alone.
Correction [2026-08-21]: (legal claim) The claimed court finding of perjury and related injunction in Chicago Headline Club v. Noem were vacated by the Seventh Circuit and the case was dismissed, so the finding no longer stands. Source: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, district court dismissal without prejudice (January 22, 2026); Seventh Circuit order vacating preliminary injunction and factfinding (March 5, 2026).
Correction [2026-08-21]: Updated Bovino’s status to confirm his retirement actually took effect, rather than remaining just an announced intention. Source: NYT exit interview, published March 2026.
Correction [2026-08-21]: Added the specific start and end dates for Bovino’s Commander-at-Large title.