Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino showed no remorse for the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown — and said he wished he had deported even more immigrants as he prepares for retirement.
“I wish I’d caught even more illegal aliens,” he recently told the New York Times. “I mean, we went as hard as we could, but there’s always a creative and innovative solution to catching even more.”
Bovino, 55, led a military-style deportation campaign across cities until January, when two Americans were killed at the hands of federal agents during chaotic operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
As he prepares to retire at the end of this month, after nearly 30 years with the agency, he doesn’t have regrets about his hard-line methods.
“We wanted total border domination,” Bovino said. “When you use terms like that, perhaps it scares some of the weaker-minded people. Domination. I want you to dominate that border. I’m not going to ‘control’ it. We’re going to dominate the hell out of that damn place.”
Bovino joined Border Patrol in 1996, though he wasn’t known outside of the agency until last June, when he became commander of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles.
The LA stint resulted in thousands of arrests as federal agents rounded up immigrants without legal status as well as some U.S. citizens. Border Patrol under Bovino’s command adopted several unusual moves, including in one operation where they leapt out of an unmarked box truck to make arrests in a Home Depot parking lot, and another where Border Patrol troops conducted what appeared to be a symbolic show of force as mounted troops paraded through LA‘s MacArthur Park.
City-wide protests that included setting cars on fire prompted the deployment of the National Guard and Marines over the course of a month.
Bovino, who would often appear publicly in tactical gear, joined masked Border Patrol agents during raids in several other cities, including Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans and Minneapolis.
While agents were carrying out Bovino’s hardline enforcement in these cities, they were often accused of excessive force and racial profiling against immigrants and citizens alike, which they denied.
Federal agents under Bovino’s command were also responsible for the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mom of three, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Bovino left Minnesota shortly after Pretti was killed on January 24 and was replaced by White House border czar Tom Homan. Bovino returned to his position as chief patrol agent in the El Centro sector of California in January.
Following his reassignment, President Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview that Bovino was “very good” but that he is “a pretty out there kind of guy, and in some cases, that’s good, maybe it wasn’t good here.”
Bovino’s exit from the border agency comes as he is reportedly under investigation by local authorities for the Minnesota operation.
A senior DHS staffer told The Daily Beast earlier this month: “He sees where the wind is blowing. He’s got an internal investigation looming, and he’s already been sent back to El Centro. Now with Noem out, it’s a sign of things to come. Chosen to jump before he’s pushed.”
Customs and Border Protection, parent agency of Border Patrol, has also reportedly opened an internal investigation into whether Bovino made disparaging remarks about the faith of a Jewish federal prosecutor in Minnesota.
His retirement comes soon after Trump fired Secretary Kristi Noem, ending her controversial 13-month stint at Homeland Security that has seen tens of thousands of immigrants removed from the U.S.
She was subsequently named “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas” which the president described as “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.”
Bovino previously had high praise for Noem. “She is the best Secretary I ever worked for, period. The others weren’t even close. Noem is the ultimate patriot,” he said earlier this month.
Trump nominated Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace her. The Senate confirmed Mullin to be the next DHS secretary Monday.
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