Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has become the public face of the Trump administration’s on-the-ground immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, is expected to leave the city on Tuesday, as the Trump administration reshuffles leadership of its immigration enforcement operation and scales back the federal presence after a second fatal shooting by officers.
A senior Trump administration official told Reuters that the 55-year-old, who has been a lightning rod for criticism from Democrats and civil liberties activists, would be leaving Minnesota along with some of the agents deployed with him.
A different person familiar with the matter said Bovino had been stripped of his specially created title of “commander at large” of the Border Patrol and would return to his former job as a chief patrol agent along California’s El Centro sector of the US-Mexico border.
Donald Trump announced on Monday that he was sending Tom Homan, his “border czar”, to Minnesota to oversee operations on the ground there – dubbed Operation Metro Surge – reporting directly to the president.
Bovino’s departure comes amid a sharp shift in strategy from the White House after the fatal killing of the 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Earlier on Monday, Donald Trump said he had held conciliatory calls with the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey – Democrats he had previously blamed for the turmoil that escalated into two fatal killings of US citizens by federal agents.
Word of Bovino’s demotion was first reported by the Atlantic on Monday, citing an official from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and two others with knowledge of the change. The Atlantic said Bovino was expected to retire soon.
The Department of Homeland Security pushed back on the demotion reports in response to a tweet from the conservative influencer Nick Sortor claiming Bovino’s official role – commander at large – had been “eliminated”.
“Chief Gregory Bovino has NOT been relieved of his duties,” the DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin replied, pointing to earlier comments from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, praising Bovino as a “key part of the president’s team and a great American”.
News of Bovino’s departure didn’t stop dozens of protesters from gathering outside a hotel where they believed Bovino was staying. They blew whistlesand banged pots, and one person blasted a trombone. Police watched and kept them away from the hotel entrance.
During a White House press briefing on Monday, Leavitt struck a more conciliatory tone, calling Pretti’s death a “tragedy” and appearing to walk back previous comments from the White House adviser Stephen Miller calling the intensive care nurse a “would-be-assassin”. Trump said earlier on Monday that his administration was reviewing the shooting of Pretti by a federal officer.
Trump and Walz – an otherwise regular target of the president’s ire and ridicule – said they had had a Monday call to discuss the federal immigration surge. The president described it in positive terms. “It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Walz’s office issued a statement that hinted at signs of a future de-escalation of the situation. It said the governor and the president had held a “productive” call in which Trump had “agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals”.
Later on Monday, Trump said he had had a “very good telephone conversation” with Frey, who has been sharply critical of the administration’s deployment. In a statement, Frey said he had conveyed to Trump that the current deployment “needs to end”.
“The president agreed that the present situation cannot continue,” Frey said, adding: “Some federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.”
Bovino has been one of the most aggressive promoters of Trump’s deportation campaign, trumpeting the operations in highly produced videos meant to resemble action films. Often Bovino, a swaggering presence recognisable by his closely cropped hair, was the only unmasked face, surrounded by a team of agents wearing black neck gaiters and facial coverings. He recently appeared in the Minneapolis snow wearing an army green greatcoat, which invited comparisons to the Gestapo.
According to the Atlantic, Bovino will return to El Centro, California, where he previously served as chief patrol agent of the sector. Bovino, through constant appearances on conservative media, his aggressive “turn and burn” tactics, and vocal support for Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, parlayed his regional role into a national one, leading the administration’s city-by-city crackdown.
CNN reported on Monday that DHS had suspended Bovino’s access to his social media accounts.
Bovino had aggressively defended his agents, despite video footage contradicting his claims, after the fatal shooting of Renee Good earlier this month and Pretti at the weekend.
“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” Bovino said after Pretti’s killing. Video showed that Pretti had been holding a phone, not a gun, and that agents had disarmed Pretti before killing him.
Last year, Bovino was reprimanded by a federal judge for lying to the court.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
