In New York, Greg Bovino Says DHS’ ‘Light Touch’ Allowed Minneapolis ‘Lawlessness’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Greg Bovino knows Minneapolis is a problem. The former CBP sector chief, who now styles himself “The Commander,” burst into the limelight last year with a series of city operations that ratcheted up in their level of aggression and violence — Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and more, culminating in Minneapolis’ Operation Metro Surge. At an event hosted by the New York Young Republicans in Manhattan on Thursday night, Bovino was alternately braggadocious and defensive. He used far-right catchphrases like “remigration,” and called for the deportation of 100 million people. He relived the key moments of his campaign through American cities, describing and relitigating court battles, and even individual media images that went viral in close detail. He dropped hints about ties to far-right European parties whose lineage canbe traced to 20th century fascism; when I asked Bovino whether federal officers’ tactics contributed to the killing of Alex Pretti, he asserted that, on the contrary, Customs and Border Protection had too much of a “light touch” in Minneapolis. There were no dog whistles, and, for his audience, that’s part of the appeal: Bovino earned his bona fides last year with the segment of the right that wants to see the Trump administration forcibly put down the opposition. When two protestors interrupted a discussion he was having with NYYRC President Stefano Forte, holding neon yellow signs that read “Bovino is a murderer,” he remarked: “there was a prime example of cannon fodder,” a term he had used to describe Minneapolis protesters. The Minneapolis operation ended after the deaths of Renee Good, shot while in her car by an ICE officer, and Pretti, shot while on the ground by two CBP officers. Bovino now shifts blame for the Minneapolis operation to ICE. But in January in the Twin Cities, Bovino, and those around him, spoke and acted like he was in charge of more than just CBP. DHS identified him during a January press conference as commanding CBP assets in the Twin Cities. He bragged to a Minneapolis reporter that, “if Secretary Noem and President Trump understand that the situation is even worse, I’ll bring in more.” The Minnesota Attorney General said in a January lawsuit that Bovino had “direct responsibility for DHS activities in the Twin Cities.” But now, Bovino is backtracking. “That was an ICE mission, not Border Patrol,” Bovino told Forte on Thursday night. He said that CBP was “in the air” having “boarded military aircraft” to Minneapolis, when ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good. “And then, of course, the whole mission changed,” Bovino said. “We stayed a lot longer, but that was still an ICE mission. We never got to engage those anarchists and rioters as we did in Chicago or Los Angeles.” By the time Bovino got to the Twin Cities in January, he’d spent the previous seven months helming a dizzying, months-long Trump administration operation to rampage through American cities. With each city, Bovino attracted more attention, and the operations’ ambition began to grow, too. These rebounded off one another: the operations themselves became more radical as Bovino’s national profile grew. These involved sweeps in which DHS officers arrested American citizens based on racial profiling and detained non-citizens with no criminal records for indefinite periods of time. As opposition to these tactics gathered momentum, ICE, HSI, and CBP took on a new role of surveilling nonviolent protesters, using legal authorities created after 9/11 to do so. Bovino flaunted his indifference to standard procedure and the courts, and the White House backed him up. In California, the Trump administration federalized the state national guard in what the Supreme Court found to be a violation of lawful procedure. In Chicago, agents rappelled into an apartment complex from military helicopters. A federal judge restricted DHS from using teargas, but, soon after, Bovino was photographed throwing a teargas can at protestors. He broadcast it all on social media, ballooning his follower count on X, starting the year as an obscure CBP sector chief in the California desert and ending it as a national figure. As the weather turned colder, Bovino donned a long greatcoat that prompted comparisons to the SS. Bovino addressed the coat on Thursday, saying it was a 1920s-era Border Patrol uniform and remarking on how protestors had used “that ‘Nazi’ term.” “But you know what? They copied it from us,” he said, apparently referring to the Nazis. The Pretti killing was a tipping point for the Bovino strategy of flooding cities with federal agents. Republican senators supported an investigation; after Bovino said there would be none and that the CBP officers involved would continue working, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) demanded the opposite. After several days, DHS officials removed Bovino from the city. Since then, aggressive immigration enforcement has continued, as have DHS-enabled investigations of nonviolent protestors: but Bovino’s unique style of dramatic urban operations are over. In public appearances since then, he’s largely avoided talking about Pretti. So, after the event, I asked him his thoughts on the killing. “Do you feel that CBP’s tactics in Minneapolis led to the killing of Alex Pretti?” I asked. Bovino replied that CBP’s approach in Minnesota was a “very light touch.” “If you look at Los Angeles, Chicago, there were no fatalities amongst anarchists or rioters like there was in Minnesota,” he added. “And when you have a light touch and don’t deal with individuals the way that they should be — in other words, when lawlessness is allowed to fester, when the media is allowed to help fester violence like that — then you’re going to have more violence.” He went on to accuse the “liberal, fringe-left, lemmings” media of causing the violence, along with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. As he spoke, he became angrier. His face started to redden, and he asked: “Do you think maybe, just maybe, that might have had something to do with it? And you’re asking me if CBP had something to do with it. Have you asked Frey that?” I replied by asking whether he stood by his remarks after Pretti’s killing that Pretti intended to commit a massacre; Bovino replied, raising his voice and saying, “you’re done, you’re done,” before turning away. Bovino’s actions last year have turned him into a folk hero on the extreme far right. Forte, the NYYRC President, introduced him with some hagiography: “Commander Bovino didn’t sit back, didn’t let our country be taken over. He took the fight to them. In every sanctuary city, every street corner, every bodega.” Now, Bovino’s trying to parlay his fame into something, though it’s not entirely clear what. He endorsed the launch of presidential exploratory committee in June; it was immediately rocked by a meth scandal. That same month, he traveled to Portugal for a “Remigration Summit,” meeting with lawmakers from far-right parties that trace their own lineage back to the fascist parties of the early 20th century. For these Europeans, Bovino has taken on the role of a minor idol, whose exploits and operations in large American cities serve as inspiration for what they might do to their migrants at home. One audience member on Thursday asked Bovino whether migration was a United Nations plot to destroy Western Civilization and Christianity. “Fantastic question,” Bovino replied, praising groups like Germany’s AfD for countering the UN’s “clandestine effort.” “They had support from people like Hillary Clinton and Hussein O’Bummer,” he intoned. “They had great support behind the scenes by those regimes.” It’s an increasingly garden variety conspiracy theory that mainly serves to show how much Bovino seems to miss having the means to execute on what he views as the proper response: “remigration,” mass denaturalization, mass deportations. He’s promoted the idea that there are 100 million undocumented migrants in America, ripe for deportation. (Realistic estimates place the number closer to 14 million; one tally estimated that in order to reach 100 million immigrants, you’d have to count everyone who has arrived since the 18th century.) “I said it was a fourth of the population,” Bovino said Thursday, attempting to explain how he would deport “100 million” people. “We start with 330 million American citizens and then we add another 107 million illegal aliens onto that.” This kind of thing, in September 2026, is often met with a deep sense of exhaustion. The country is turning away from MAGA and what it stands for; perhaps not forever, but at least in the upcoming midterms. People are tired of it; they ignore or brush off the open racism and fear-mongering. The event space, located in midtown Manhattan, had seats to spare. The crowd of protesters outside was about as large as the audience at Bovino’s talk. But for Bovino on Thursday, there was something approaching nostalgia for the violence of 2025. He described going to Chicago’s Little Village, an area of the city home to a large community of Mexican immigrants that Bovino singled out. “We went straight to Little Village — massive amounts of violence started immediately,” he recalled. Forte asked what he meant by “violence.” “I would say that was the most violent law enforcement mission ever in American history,” Bovino replied. He was almost wistful. When the end comes for this Keebler Nazi, it will not be pretty. But it will be just. Some day, Bovino will get his comeuppance. I hope it is sooner rather than later. He deserves it. If it looks like a nazi, talks like a nazi, and acts like a nazi, well then… Huh, so murder is now a light touch? What would the heavy touch include…large-scale murder? Torture, then murder? This little guy is really a sicko.