Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino expected to leave Minneapolis as anger grows over shooting of Alex Pretti
As the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown continues, one man has become the face of the campaign: Gregory Bovino.
US media reported that the Border Control commander has now been ordered to leave Minnesota after federal immigration agents fatally shot two US citizens in Minneapolis in less than three weeks.
Since Trump’s election, Bovino has overseen fierce US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans.
New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.
This month he established his reputation as a key backer of ICE’s militant operations amid a crackdown in Minneapolis, during which Renee Good, a mother of three, and intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, both aged 37, were killed by federal agents.
The Trump administration, led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, claimed that Good, an award-winning poet, committed an “act of domestic terrorism” by deliberately driving her car at an ICE agent who fired “defensive shots”.
Bovino backed the narrative, claiming his agents’ actions were “legal, ethical, and moral”, despite video footage, verified by The i Paper, casting doubt on the US government’s account of Good’s shooting.
The Border Patrol commander also took to the podium in a string of press conferences following Pretti’s death, claiming his “poor choices” led to “tragic consequences”.
He went further in an interview with CNN after the shooting, dubbing the federal agents involved in Pretti’s shooting as the incident’s “victims”.
“The victims are the Border Patrol agents,” he said. “I’m not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The suspect put himself in that situation.”
Amid growing backlash over the shooting, Trump told The Wall Street Journal his administration was “reviewing everything” in relation to Pretti’s death.
Bovino and some of his agents are expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday to return to their respective sectors, with Trump dispatching White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis on Monday.
US media reported that Bovino had been reassigned to other duties, however the Department of Homeland Security denied reports that he was removed from his role altogether.
A ‘Nazi-coded’ commander
Bovino, who is originally from North Carolina, joined the Border Patrol in 1996. In 2020, he became chief patrol agent of the US Customs and Border Protection’s El Centro sector of southern California.
By October 2025, Noem promoted him to the unofficial role of Border Patrol “commander at large”, allowing him to work hand-in-hand with ICE to tackle illegal immigration.
Bovino, who is in his fifties, is often spotted accompanying federal immigration agents during their brutal raids, but unlike his ICE colleagues, he chooses not to wear a face mask.
This allowed viewers to identify him in a video that emerged last week, which appeared to show him hurling a canister with a chemical irritant at protesters in Minneapolis.
Bovino stands with fellow federal agents during a protest against ICE outside the Bishop Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis (Photo: Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty)
“Gas is coming,” he warned before launching the canister.
When not wearing the agency’s tactical gear, Bovino is often dressed in an olive, double-breasted, wool overcoat with brass buttons and pointed cuffs.
Bovino’s attire, coupled with his military-style buzz cut, has been branded “Nazi-coded” by California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom.
Speaking from Davos during the World Economic Forum, Newsom – a vocal critic of the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown – said Bovino “dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb.”
“Greg Bovino, secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally, no due process,” he added, alluding to similarities in tactics used by ICE and the Third Reich.
He was not alone in drawing the comparison – German commentators also remarked that “Bovino’s outfits complete the Nazi look“.
Arno Frank, writing for German media outlet Der Spiegel, said that Bovino “stands out from this thuggish mob” like “an elegant SS officer”.
Bovino insisted during an interview with the US network NewsNation that the “coat is definitely Border Patrol-issued”.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department for Homeland Security, told The New York Times that the coat came as part of the “standard-issue border patrol winter dress uniform”.
But the newspaper pointed out that the 2025 Border Patrol’s Uniform and Grooming Standards did not list the coat as part of any official uniform.
An analogy between white supremacy and the ICE crackdown was also drawn by Peter Mancina, a research associate at the University of Oxford Centre for Criminology, whose recent book, On the Side of ICE, explores the topic of US immigration policing.
He told The i Paper: “The [Trump] administration says that the federal crackdown is to deal with the illegal immigration problem and it forces localities to pick a side: either turn over everyone from local jails to ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] or we will militarily occupy your city and turn it into Baghdad, disrupt the lives of your entire citizenry by making it impossible for people to safely leave their homes, go to school, go to work, go to the hospital, to go anywhere, and also to even stay in their homes.
Bovino walks with agents conducting immigration enforcement sweeps in the Edison Park neighborhood of Chicago (Photo: Armando L Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty)
“They are picking these particular cities because they are ‘sanctuary cities’ run by Democrats and they say that they have chosen not to cooperate with ICE.
“My work with police, internal police records and body-camera footage shows the opposite: police in these cities have chosen to help ICE by turning over people they encounter or who they jail a lot.”
Mancina, also an adjunct professor at the Rutgers University School of Law, said his research has found that “sanctuary policies don’t reduce transfers to ICE by all that much, they end up doing three things: they turn out more Latinx voters at election time, more Latinx police management are hired and more Latinx people call the police when these policies are in place.
“So brutally targeting sanctuary cities isn’t just to appease Trump’s base. It suppresses the Latinx vote, it keeps police stations more white, and it makes fewer Latinx people report crimes.
“In that sense, you can see that the spectacle of these sieges is also about white supremacy and not just about being mean to immigrants or to villainise Democrats.”
The ‘turn and burn’ approach
Bovino has said his agents follow a “turn and burn” strategy – carrying out a large number of quick raids and arrests at different locations before leaving the scene before protesters arrive.
But his hardline, typically unapologetic approach has not been without repercussions.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara told CNN some of Bovino’s actions had “not been helpful.”
“He was riding around in the city with a caravan and stopping at places and kind of just shaking things up — that’s not been helpful,” O’Hara said, adding he hoped Bovino’s departure would help de-escalate the situation.
The commander’s conduct during the Chicago operation last summer sparked stern criticism from a federal judge, who ruled that his descriptions of events were not supported by video evidence.
Your next read
In 2023, Bovino was briefly relieved of command from his position in what House Republicans claimed was a retaliatory measure over his critical testimony about conditions along the border under former US president Joe Biden’s administration.
The Associated Press reported that other factors were also at play, including an online profile picture of him posing with an assault rifle.
Connie Thomas, associate lecturer in US history at University College London, described ICE operations as “racially motivated policies” that have involved “unprecedented” levels of violence.
She told The i Paper: “The level of violence and force being used in ongoing ICE raids is completely unjustified, and unprecedented in the modern US. The designation of migrants as predisposed to crime, violence, and drug trafficking is completely unfounded.
“Incidences of violent crime, for example, are more prevalent among natural-born US citizens. Moreover, the detention of US citizens demonstrates that these are racially motivated policies, targeting not only migrants, whether undocumented or otherwise, but any and all people of colour in the US.”
Bovino’s agents follow a ‘turn and burn’ strategy by carrying out a large number of quick raids and arrests at different locations (Photo: Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty)
Thomas pointed out that under “both the Biden and Obama administrations, documented migrants faced aggressive detention policies, and perhaps most notably, thousands of US citizens were also erroneously detained in racist raids.
“What is different now is both the scale of these policies and the levels of violence being used to enact them. In short, I think this is pre-existing rhetoric in much uglier, violent packaging.”
She added: “Given that Trump and Bovino have both alluded to ICE patrols being extended into other cities like Philadelphia in the coming weeks, I’m especially concerned for what’s to come.”
David Wilson, managing attorney of the Wilson Law Group, which offers legal services relating to immigration in Minneapolis, said Bovino and Trump were “failing America” by misrepresenting events and backing an antidemocratic crackdown.
“The outrage in Minneapolis is not about the enforcement of the law but the way it is being conducted,” he told The i Paper. “It is an affront to all American values and common decency.
Wilson added: “If the Government continues to spew lies, then Minnesotans will unite in demanding a respect for the truth and rights of all.
“Bovino and his leadership [are] failing America. This administration is trying to normalise lying. Minnesota is not willing to accept this.”
The White House claims its measures against immigration “protect American workers, reduce strain on local communities, and reinforce the nation’s right to control its borders and determine who enters the United States”.
During a press conference on the Minneapolis shooting on Sunday, Marcos Charles, acting executive associate director at ICE, said its agents have “arrested over 3,400 illegal aliens, removing criminals, gang members and terrorists out of Minnesota communities”.
The i Paper has contacted the US Border Patrol, ICE and Customs and Border Protection for a comment.