Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has become the defacto face of the controversial crackdown on illegal immigration in Minneapols, is reportedly being sent away from the city today (Tuesday, January 27) following the weekend shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti.
Tensions have remained dangerously high in Minnesota over the past few weeks, with Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents roaming the streets in a bid to round up individuals they suspect of being in the U.S. without the appropriate permissions.
Protests and anger against ICE’s heavy-handed tactics have led to clashes, which in turn have led to a string of violent incidents, including the aforementioned shooting of Alex Pretti this past Saturday and the fatal shooting of Renee Good on January 7.
The death of Pretti, a U.S. citizen who was pepper-sprayed and restrained by Border Patrol agents before being shot multiple times, was the latest in a number of incidents that have made global headlines. It may prove to be the catalyst for change.
Indeed, a senior Trump administration official is reported to have told Reuters that Greg Bovino, who held the specially created title of “commander at large” of the Border Patrol, has been stripped of the moniker and will be leaving Minnesota along with some of the agents who were deployed with him.
Bovino has been in the firing line following the controversies of the past few weeks, repeatedly defending ICE agents and parroting the Trump administration’s questionable lines regarding the circumstances under which both Renee Good and Alex Pretti lost their lives.
“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” Bovino said after Pretti’s killing.
Video evidence, however, showed Pretti to be holding a phone, not a firearm. The 37-year-old had also been disarmed before he was shot dead.
As per The Guardian, Bovino will now return to his former job as chief patrol agent along California’s El Centro sector of the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
Yesterday, President Trump revealed he was sending his so-dubbed “border tsar” Tom Homan to Minnesota. Homan is charged with overseeing operations – nicknamed Operation Metro Surge – and reporting directly to Trump himself.
In response to the news regarding Bovino’s future, the Department of Homeland Security pushed back against the idea that he had been demoted.
“Chief Gregory Bovino has NOT been relieved of his duties,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin replied, referring people to earlier comments made by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in which she praised Bovino as a “key part of the president’s team and a great American”.
It’s been reported by CNN that the DHS have suspended Bovino’s access to his social media accounts.
In a White House press briefing on Monday, Leavitt appeared to backtrack on the administration’s initial stance that painted Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” similar to the way they tried to shape Renee Good in the media. White House advisor Stephen Miller had branded Pretti a “would-be assassin”, though Leavitt labeled the killing a “tragedy”.
Trump, meanwhile, said yesterday that his administration would be reviewing the shooting.
