Gregory Bovino (Jan. 11, 2026/AP photo Jen Golbeck)
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Gregory Bovino, who became a face of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in large cities, confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he plans to retire from the Border Patrol in the coming weeks.
Bovino, 55, joined the Border Patrol in 1996 and steadily rose through the ranks. But he wasn’t well-known outside the agency until last June, when he became commander of the administration’s crackdown in Los Angeles, which resulted in thousands of arrests, most notably near Home Depots and at car washes. Agents smashed car windows, blew open a door to a house and patrolled the fabled MacArthur Park. on horseback.
Bovino, who often appeared in tactical gear, took his act to Chicago, patrolling down the Chicago River, in the Michigan Avenue tourist district and in neighborhoods across the city and suburbs. He led a helicopter raid at a large apartment building and used chemical agents to face demonstrators.
After short stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans, Bovino was a near-daily presence as Minnesota’s Twin Cities turned into a battleground between demonstrators and immigration authorities that led to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Bovino left Minnesota shortly after Pretti was killed and was replaced by White House border czar Tom Homan.
Bovino retires as chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro, California, sector, a position he held since 2020.
“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” Bovino said at a Jan. 24 news conference on the fatal shooting of the 37-year-old Pretti, a nurse with the Veterans Administration in Minneapolis by federal officers. His version of events was immediately called into question by eyewitness videos.
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