LOS ANGELES — Gregory Bovino’s distinguished Border Patrol career was in a downward spiral. In August 2023, he was relieved of command of the agency’s El Centro, California, sector, where he rose to be one of 20 regional chiefs across the country.
Bovino blamed a batch of perceived transgressions, details of which have not been previously reported: an online profile picture of him posing with an M4 assault rifle; social media posts that were considered inappropriate; and sworn congressional testimony that he and other sector chiefs gave on the state of the border during a record surge of migrants.
Thirty minutes after his second congressional hearing, Bovino said, he was removed from his position and asked, “Are you going to retire now?”
He did not retire, the profile photo with the assault rifle is back online and, at 55, he is leading immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, which the federal government has called “ground zero for the effects of the border crisis.” Bovino’s fall and rise illustrates how fundamentally immigration policy, tactics and messaging have changed under President Donald Trump.
While Trump’s aggressive deportation plans accelerate, Bovino carefully hones his image, both his own and the one projected to the country that shows well-armed officers moving swiftly into place to make arrests.
On a recent August morning, several unmarked SUVs with tinted windows sped to the curb outside a Home Depot in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. A Guatemalan tamale vendor was handcuffed while men with M4 rifles and military-style gear watched over and day laborers fled. Protesters sounded sirens and whistles. One briefly blocked a Border Patrol vehicle, but agents left in a little more than four minutes.
The same team, dressed as civilians with faces masked and badges on their waists, stormed a car wash in the suburb of Montebello around 11:30 a.m. They made four arrests, including a Guatemalan worker who fled down an alley and a Mexican employee who was tackled after running into the office. It was over in seven minutes.
These were just the kind of fast-paced, blunt maneuvers that Bovino relishes. With a knack for made-for-TV moments, Bovino’s operation has riven parts of Los Angeles and given Trump allies fodder for boasts.
In a city famous for second acts, Bovino is certainly having one. The North Carolina native with ample biceps and hair spiked with gel is an avatar of the Trump era, once scorned for his tactics, now praised because of them.
With the change from President Joe Biden to Trump, Bovino has gone from nearly being forced to retire to a MAGA-world hero who sends holiday cards to colleagues that show agents with heavy weapons.
Undeterred by court orders over racial profiling, Bovino also revels in breaking norms. Agents have smashed car windows, blown open a door to a house and patrolled the fabled MacArthur Park on horseback. Bovino often appears in tactical gear, as he did outside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s news conference on congressional redistricting on Aug. 14.
He also knows the power of a good slogan, calling the pacing of his operation “turn and burn.” “We’re not going to hit one location, we’re going to hit as many as we can,” Bovino said in an interview in a seventh-floor conference room of the federal building in West Los Angeles, where an unused office wing serves as a sparsely furnished temporary base. “All over — all over — the Los Angeles region, 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. We’re not going to stop until there’s not a problem here.”
As Chicago braces for a similar crackdown, the Los Angeles effort topped 5,000 arrests last week. A campaign in Washington, D.C., has resulted in many immigration arrests but is cast as a broader strike against crime and has a more central role for the National Guard. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday that Bovino called the head of the state police to say immigration officials were coming to Chicago, without elaborating.
