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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Monday that he still supports Rep. Max Miller, (R-OH) despite the severe domestic abuse allegations against the Ohio congressman.

Former Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino retired while under internal investigation for his conduct during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis and Chicago, records released last week by the federal government show.

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August 26, 2026, edition of The Tucker Carlson Show, posted on YouTube

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): So how did, when Kristi Noem left, was forced out, and then replaced by one of the slowest, famously one of the slowest, but certainly one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate, Markwayne Mullin, which he is. He's extremely liberal and because he's from Oklahoma, like, nobody seems to get that, but he is, particularly in immigration and foreign policy. I mean, it's like giving it to Lindsey Graham. How did that — why would you put Markwayne Mullin, a liberal, a Kamala Harris liberal, in that role?

GREG BOVINO (GUEST): Exactly. I think when we talk about those donors, that donor class, getting someone confirmed, why would you not put a liberal in? You're going to get enough votes from the crazy Democrats. And then you're going to get the support from the big labor RINOs, just like they did with Commissioner Rodney Scott. He sailed through the confirmation.

...

BOVINO: So, that's how, that's how someone like a Mark Mullin is put into a position like that. There are a certain class of people that love a Mullin. Hey, you know, Mullin, what is he listening to? He's listening to Tom Homan, Rodney Scott, worst of the worst in targeting. That's really all he can, that's all he can regurgitate is that --

CARLSON: And so that, for people who haven't heard that talking point, that means we're going after the really bad ones.

BOVINO: The really bad ones. Worst of the, the criminal aliens, the terrorists, child molesters, you know, folks that have committed murder, whatever. The worst of the worst.

CARLSON: People who have criticized Israel, stuff like that. Really, the really bad. The ones who deserve the death penalty.

BOVINO: And, and, and, I will say that that is the opposite of what we should be doing. That is not a threat to your nation. Let me say this again. A lot of people think I'm crazy. That's not the threat to your nation is the worst of the worst.

The threat to your nation is your run-of-the-mill illegal alien that we've just said, the 105 million that don't share your cultures, your values, that don't care about anything related to America, that have been given, that want to be given citizenship. That's far more of a threat. Hey, we can get those criminal aliens anytime. That record's not going away. We can get them anytime. Anytime.

Right now, we've got that window to get that regular run-of-the-mill illegal alien, maybe a landscaper, maybe he doesn't have a criminal record in the US, even though he's still a criminal because he crossed the border illegally, they're all criminals. Probably does have a criminal record in a foreign country that we won't know about. But that is far more of a threat to you, me, and our values, than an MS-13 gang member.

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Greg Bovino: “Immigration and remigration, mass deportations, are the number one issue for the preservation of our culture, the preservation of our society, our values, our customs, our beliefs”

06/02/26 2:41 PM EDT

“Looks like a surrender”: Right-wing media figures are disappointed by Trump’s demotion of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino

01/27/26 4:03 PM EST

Fox co-host suggests sending Greg Bovino to deal with ICE protesters

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The Second Annual European Ethnic Cleansing Conference Looks to Trump for Inspiration - Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

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In Portugal, hundreds of far-right activists gathered last Saturday for the annual “Remigration Summit” advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants. Former U.S. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino and white nationalist leader Jared Taylor were VIP guests alongside elected officials from Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party and Spain’s Vox. In an interview ahead of the event, Bovino cited Nazi Germany’s lead general, Erwin Rommel, as an inspirational figure. At the summit, Bovino said, “If there is inspiration gained from the U.S. Border Patrol model and method, then fantastic.” Bovino was fired after immigration agents under his command killed 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

DEMOTED RETIRED CPAC? TRYING TO TAKE SOCMED ACCTS W. HIM 4 26

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A former Trump administration official who was kicked out in disgrace is waging a new "civil war" against his replacement, The Daily Beast reported, and this brewing conflict could further imperil one of President Donald Trump's biggest plans.

Greg Bovino previously served as the commander-at-large for Customs and Border Protection, and became one of the biggest faces of Trump's mass deportation agenda during his first year back in the White House. He was removed from that position in January, with many observers arguing that he was taking the fall after two American citizens were shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, and he later retired altogether in March.

He is not staying quiet, however, as The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that he is speaking out publicly against Trump's new leading deportation official, Tom Homan, accusing him of "political theater" by not more aggressively carrying out deportations against non-violent immigrants. In his most recent post, he took shots at Homan over his threat to send "a hell of a lot more agents to New York" in response to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's efforts to curb ICE activity in the state.

“He sounds super tough,” Bovino wrote in a post to X. “But zoom in. All he’s actually promising is rounding up the ones who already have known criminal records.” Homan, he said, “is denying reality.”

Bovino further claimed that there were "100 million" other undocumented immigrants "laughing at us," being left untouched by Homan's approach, "staying right where they are… until they rob or kill you," with mass deportations being the only solution.

"Anything less is just political theater," Bovino added.

The Daily Beast deflated that statistic from Bovino, noting that available information puts the total number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at around 14 million, to say nothing of the distinction between violent and non-violent immigrants. Other data suggests that the total number of immigrants in the U.S., across all categories, is only around 50 million.

These sorts of wildly overstated statistics about immigrants have fueled criticisms of the administration's real intentions, with some arguing that they want to end any and all immigration into the country.

"This is not the first time Bovino has gone rogue in naming Trump officials he believes are going soft on immigration," The Daily Beast's report added. "On a right-wing podcast in late April, he warned that 'some of the team may not have the fortitude that President Trump does,' singling out White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Homan. He has also stated his view that Homan and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott 'do nothing.'"

It continued: "The feud cuts to a central criticism of Trump—that his deportation drive has stalled far short of its promises. The president’s stated target is one million removals a year. The actual pace has held at roughly 1,286 a day — about 460,000 annually — according to UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, as analyzed by researcher Austin Kocher."

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AI Overview

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Gregory **Bovino, a high-ranking U.S. Border Patrol official and key figure in the BORTAC (Border Patrol Tactical Unit), announced his retirement in March 2026 amid controversies, lawsuits, and federal scrutiny over his tactics in leading immigration enforcement, including "Operation Metro Surge". Known for aggressive techniques, he was chastised by a judge for using chemical agents and, according to reports, providing false testimony.

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WIRED sifted through the identities of federal agents sent to Chicago in Donald Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz," and they've been able to identify some of them as a "heavily armed paramilitary unit."

"A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in U.S. history," the outlet reported Thursday.

The ongoing mass deportation efforts come from Trump's pledge to deport millions of people he claimed entered the U.S. in the four years between his administrations. He's come up against the problem, however, that there aren't millions of criminals for his agents to nab and deport one *Washington Post* report explained. The campaign has led to hostility and protests that took the lives of two Americans when federal agents opened fire on them.

One PBS/NPR/Marist poll in February showed two-thirds of Americans think Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) have "gone too far."

Four of the men WIRED found are "members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC." It's a specialized federal law enforcement force based mainly at Fort Bliss. They've been sent out to at least 11 "detachments" around the U.S. The report described the agents as, at one time, being "reserved for desert rescues, executing high-risk warrants, conflicts with armed drug cartels and manhunts."

One of those unmasked was John Bockstanz, WIRED said. The Marine veteran is from Michigan, and also runs a company as a side hustle that sells "pre-workout supplements." Essentially, they're "testosterone supplements."

"Conquer each day with unparalleled potency," promises the “Alpha Testosterone Booster."

Bockstanz was in an SUV with "agent John Leslie from BORTAC’s Detroit detachment."

Another agent was identified as Javier Puente, who was in the U.S. Army. The body camera he wore showed him gripping a 40-mm grenade launcher while sitting in the back of an SUV. It wasn't used for grenades there, however, they used it to launch "less lethal" pepper-spray rounds into crowds, the report said.

While BORTAC is described as an elite unit, that isn't a sentiment embraced by others in the top forces.

One former Special Forces member was critical of BORTAC when speaking to WIRED.

“They go in real hot — in my opinion, too hot and too unruly,” the veteran said about his experience with the agents. They tend to be “ego-driven hotheads.” While they might be "highly trained," they have little or no actual war-fighting experience.

“Even then, they’re definitely not the people I’d want in any sort of civilian law enforcement context," he added.

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Unmasking the Paramilitary Agents Behind Trump’s Violent Immigration Crackdown

A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history.

Documents and body camera footage released by the Department of Homeland Security reveal the paramilitary agents who used force against civilians during Operation Midway Blitz.Composite: WIRED Staff; Source materials: Department of Homeland Security

In the early morning last September 30, hundreds of federal agents swarmed the South Shore Apartments, a beige brick building on Chicago’s South Side. As feds in body armor rappelled down from a Black Hawk helicopter overhead, others crashed through the building’s doors with battering rams, rounding up residents at gunpoint.

A group of burly, masked agents wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, and toting suppressor-equipped M4 rifles, moved through the hallways in a rapid, tightly organized file. Padraic Daniel Berlin, a 34-year-old Michigan native and son of a Detroit firefighter, held Yoda, his Belgian Malinois, on a leash. David Dubar Jr., a 53-year-old onetime construction worker, followed closely behind him. Their team leader, Corey Myers, a Marine veteran from the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, checked apartment doors. Paul Delgado Jr., a standout cross-country runner in high school, was the final member of the entry team.

The four men are members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC. Based mainly out of Fort Bliss, with at least 11 detachments stationed around the United States, BORTAC and its sister unit, Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue, or BORSTAR, were once reserved for desert rescues, executing high-risk warrants, conflicts with armed drug cartels, and manhunts.

Under Donald Trump, however, they have been sent into the streets of major US cities. The result is the largest known deployment of BORTAC and BORSTAR agents in US history, a fact made difficult to pin down due to the government's secrecy around their operations. Many of the agents’ identities have remained hidden from the public. The decision to use offensive, heavily armed paramilitary units for street-level immigration sweeps in American cities is a first—a bellwether of the Trump administration’s project to militarize domestic law enforcement operations.

Myers, Berlin, Dubar, Delgado, and their teammates seemed keyed up. The intelligence briefing they received claimed the building was controlled by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang the Trump administration categorized—despite contrary evidence amassed by its own intelligence services—as a foreign terrorist organization. Gang members were supposedly occupying the building and storing grenades, handguns, and rifles on the second floor, where a suspect with an open warrant for firearms possession lived. This intelligence was never released or substantiated, and Illinois later launched an investigation into whether the property owner had sent baseless claims to the feds. But at that moment, it didn’t matter.

At every door approached by his team, Berlin yelled, “Police! Speak to me now or I’ll send the dog!” In a second-floor unit, the BORTAC team detained one man. Further down the hall, Myers noticed “signs of forced entry” and smashed open the door. Tolulope Akinsulie, an undocumented immigrant from Nigeria, happened to be hiding in the bedroom. Without issuing a warning or verbal command, Berlin let go of Yoda’s leash and the Malinois pounced, sinking its teeth into Akinsulie’s leg as he screamed in agony. Yoda bit Akinsulie repeatedly in the leg, hip, and hands before Berlin called the dog off and his team placed the man in cuffs. Akinsulie, who was not a target of the raid and has no known history of violent crime or gang affiliation, was treated for his injuries and taken to the Broadview Processing Center to face removal proceedings.

Berlin’s actions that morning were not isolated. He was involved in at least five uses of force during Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s 2025 surge of hundreds of immigration agents into Chicago and surrounding communities. Nor were the actions of his team, according to a WIRED analysis of US government records, which appeared to escalate tensions with civilian onlookers rather than quell them. Since last year, BORTAC and BORSTAR have fronted several of the US government’s invasions of its own cities, often engaging in almost theatrical uses of force that litter newscasts and social feeds, adding a new salience to US Border Patrol Special Operations Group’s self-proclaimed status as the “tip of the spear.”

The agents sent to Chicago—and Los Angeles, North Carolina, Boston, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Sacramento—come from a secretive, tightly knit world. Their names, many of which are available in a narrow set of court records and reported here for the first time, are typically excluded from official documents and shielded from public records requests. In the streets of American cities, they are usually masked, identified only by “call signs” that are sometimes visible on their uniforms and mean nothing to people demanding badge numbers.

One BORTAC agent is married to a TV news anchor who reports on the Border Patrol. Another, who also engaged in a gun battle with a school shooter in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, has posted frequently in an online gun forum with thread titles like “Whipping Haitians.” Many are military veterans, some of whom saw combat during the Forever Wars. Several have histories of domestic violence or sexual assault. Others are former cops who joined the Border Patrol after questionable uses of force. BORTAC and BORSTAR agents are not police—they are paramilitaries who operate by a different standard and with different rules of engagement, trained and suited not for law enforcement but for war.

A WIRED review of over 78 incident reports from Operation Midway Blitz found that BORTAC and BORSTAR agents were, as a group, the most violent of the hundreds of federal agents deployed to Chicago. In these documents, CBP employees recorded over 144 discrete uses of force by CBP personnel from September through early November. Sixty-two BORTAC and BORSTAR personnel were involved in these incidents over an eight-week period. Of that group, 25 were involved in two or more incidents, and 16 more used force at least once during this period. Of the 234 federal law enforcement personnel WIRED identified in these reports, BORTAC and BORSTAR agents represent almost a quarter of all personnel involved in documented confrontations with civilians during Operation Midway Blitz

Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty is actively investigating 17 separate incidents involving federal agents for potential criminal conduct. At least two of those incidents—the January 21 gassing of a crowd in South Minneapolis and a chaotic enforcement action outside Roosevelt High School—involve BORTAC personnel, per videos and photographs taken on scene.

The Department of Homeland Security has kept data and documents about the federal immigration deployments closely guarded, disclosing records only in response to litigation. US senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has been wrestling with DHS over data regarding last fall’s Operation Charlotte’s Web in his state. Tillis requested records on stops, detentions, questioning, searches, releases, uses of force, and property damage incidents, as well as the total number of detentions and a tally of all encounters with American citizens.

During Operation Midway Blitz, incidents beyond the South Shore Apartment raids included the gassing of an affluent Northside Chicago neighborhood right before a children’s Halloween parade, a chaotic car chase on the city’s South Side, and clashes with protesters outside the Broadview immigration detention facility.

BORTAC’s and BORSTAR’s uses of force in Chicago included punching and kicking protesters, throwing tear gas, macing civilians, firing pepperballs and 40-mm foam rounds into crowds, shocking people with tasers, unleashing dogs on deportation targets, and shooting unarmed civilians, killing at least one of them. This violence tracks with a loosening of the Border Patrol’s use-of-force guidelines following Gregory Bovino’s directives, as reported by the American Prospect.

“I think if we push this whole fucking block back, that ought to teach ’em a lesson,” says Bovino on an agent's body camera recording from September 27, during clashes with demonstrators at Chicago’s Broadview detention facility. “And if it doesn't, we arrest.” Bovino, the now-retired face of Trump’s immigration surges throughout 2025 and early 2026, is a longtime BORTAC member who led dozens of these agents on incursions into Southern California, Chicago, and Minneapolis, putting them front and center at some of the most high-profile clashes between immigration enforcement and the public during the past nine months.

Other body camera footage from nearly a month later captured one BORTAC agent, Edgar Vazquez, telling his colleagues that he planned to refuse Bovino’s directives. “The chief wanted us to throw gas, and I was like, we can’t!” said Vazquez. “Nah, I’m not gonna fucking do it—I’m gonna stay within policy.”

“It’s clear the administration likes the optics of BORTAC—the long guns, the camouflage, the body armor. They certainly did for Trump’s first go-round,” says John Sandweg, who was director of ICE from 2013 to 2014. However, he says, the unit is not generally familiar with urban policing, and its record in Chicago demonstrates the poor fit of borderland tactics for densely packed cities. “It’s malpractice to have paramilitary teams try to impose order by force,” he says.

In a response to WIRED’s requests for comment, CBP cited the threat of “doxing” and refused to confirm employment of the Border Patrol agents identified in the government’s own records. CBP personnel are “trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and themselves,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement.

CBP also declined to comment on whether any of the use-of-force incidents from Operation Midway Blitz are the subject of internal investigations, stating that the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility handles all such probes before submitting them to CBP’s Use of Force Review Boards.

The documents, body camera footage, and other material WIRED used to identify more than 60 BORTAC and BORSTAR operators were pried loose during litigation against DHS over alleged First Amendment violations, unconstitutional arrests, and grievous uses of force during Operation Midway Blitz, including the killing of Silverio Villegas González and nonfatal shooting of Marimar Martinez by ICE and Border Patrol agents, respectively.

No BORTAC or BORSTAR agent named in this story responded to WIRED’s request for comment.

In Illinois, civil rights attorneys and civic organizations are pressuring the Cook County state’s attorney to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and potentially prosecute ICE, CBP, and Border Patrol agents for uses of force and wrongful arrests during Operation Midway Blitz.

To date, no Border Patrol, CBP, or ICE agent has faced criminal charges for their conduct during the operation in Chicago.

The full force of the paramilitary surge into American cities was on open display the morning of October 25, 2025, when a convoy of BORTAC and other Border Patrol agents swept through the tranquil North Side Chicago neighborhood of Irving Park, trailed by whistle-blowing “ICE watchers” in cars and on bicycles.

Shortly before 10 am, a gray Suburban with BORTAC agents Andy Chavez and Tee Rico riding in the back seat cruised through Irving Park’s tree-lined streets. A black Wagoneer filled with Border Patrol agents followed closely behind, carrying BORTAC agent Javier Puente, an Army veteran, in the rear seat. All the agents wore masks and camouflage tactical gear, with pistols at their hips and M4-pattern rifles near at hand. Puente’s body camera video shows him gripping a 40-mm grenade launcher intended to fire pepper-spray-loaded “less lethal” rounds.

On the sidewalks around them, Irving Park residents gathered for the community’s Halloween parade. Before the hour was up, chaos would erupt in the residential neighborhood.

Chavez and Rico spotted a Latino man running from their convoy, leaped out of their vehicle, and tackled the man on the front lawn of a white townhouse. The home’s owner, Brian Kolp, an attorney and onetime Cook County state’s attorney who used to represent Chicago police officers in civil litigation, stormed out of his house, barefoot, screaming at the feds to get off his property and take their masks off.

“This has nothing to do with enforcing the law, and everything to do with intimidating citizens with military tactics,” Kolp tells WIRED of the incident.

Other residents and members of ICE-watch groups joined in, blowing whistles, cursing out the agents, and recording the incident on their phones. As the Border Patrol convoy attempted to leave the scene, enraged onlookers—at least one still wearing a bathrobe—moved to block their path.

As the crowd grew more hostile, agents ramped up their uses of force. Michael Brosilow—a photographer, Irving Park resident, and decorated long-distance runner—pulled into his neighborhood after returning from a training session. Rico and Chavez confronted the 68-year-old man, who yelled, “Fuck you!” as he stepped out of his silver Toyota. Rico then tackled Brosilow, planted his knee in his back, and handcuffed him. “This is my block!” Brosilow screamed. Six of Brosilow’s ribs were broken in the encounter, and he suffered internal bleeding.

Chavez pulled the pin on a can of tear gas and tossed it into the street as bystanders screamed. Puerte, meanwhile, spotted 25-year-old ICE watcher Maria Bryan allegedly hit Rico in the head and slammed her and her bicycle to the ground, fracturing seven of her ribs.

The agents eventually loaded into the vehicle, drove off, and radioed in that they had arrested two US citizens for “impeding” and “assault.” (Neither Brosilow nor Bryan were charged.)

As the agents moved out of Irving Park, the horns of trailing cars and whistles from ICE watchers were clearly audible. When the SUV stopped at a red light, two men on the sidewalk stepped up to remonstrate with the feds.

Puente photographed one with his iPhone, then rolled down his window and pointed his grenade launcher at a second man.

“Get the fuck out of the way!” he yelled, aiming his muzzle at the civilian as the vehicle pulled away. “Fuck you!”

Created in 1984 to deal with riots in immigration detention camps, BORTAC has been sent to South America for narcotics interdiction missions alongside the Drug Enforcement Administration; conducted missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Jordan; and, in the recent past, raided desert aid stations. While BORTAC is designed for close combat, BORSTAR, which was created in 1998 in response to a rise in migrant deaths on the southern border, specializes in open-country operations. Members of both teams undergo Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training, are taught complex military surveillance and countersurveillance tactics, and tend to be recruited from specialized military units like the Army Rangers.

“They go in real hot—in my opinion, too hot and too unruly,” says a former Special Forces member, speaking on condition of anonymity. This veteran says that in his experience, BORTAC members tend to be “ego-driven hotheads” who are highly trained but have little or no operational war-fighting experience. “Even then, they’re definitely not the people I’d want in any sort of civilian law enforcement context.”

Beginning in February 2020, the first Trump administration sent BORTAC into Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” for civil immigration enforcement, a surge that was short-circuited by the Covid-19 pandemic. Later that summer, BORTAC agents were documented snatching protesters off the streets of Portland, Oregon, during the George Floyd protests.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, BORTAC and BORSTAR agents have participated in immigration blitzes in California, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Vermont. Since October, the Border Patrol’s paramilitary units, led by Timothy P. Sullivan, the head of the Fort Bliss–based Border Patrol’s Special Operations Group, have also commanded the federal presence at an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon, that has been a constant target of protests, often resulting in violent clashes. More recently, in mid-March, agents from one of the Border Patrol’s local Special Operations detachments used crowd control munitions on protesters in South Burlington, Vermont, during a chaotic immigration arrest.

Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies who has studied police militarization and paramilitary units for decades, says that BORTAC’s presence in Chicago was a textbook case of authoritarian overreach. “Why are they enforcing civil immigration violations with paramilitary teams?” Kraska says. “Armored personnel carriers, hostage rescue tactics, Special Forces–grade weapons, SEAL-style tactics—why do you need all that for civil violations?”

A week and a half before the Irving Park incident, another event between Border Patrol agents and a Latino couple shows how quickly Border Patrol agents escalated to tear-gassing dozens of civilians and Chicago police officers.

On October 14, Border Patrol agents were involved in a car chase and a collision with a Latino couple. One of the agents involved in the crash, Carlos Chavira Jr., radioed for help, and several BORTAC agents drove to the scene.

One of the SUVs that arrived was driven by John Bockstanz, a Michigan resident and former Marine who runs a company that sells pre-workout supplements on the side—“Conquer each day with unparalleled potency,” promises the “Alpha Testosterone Booster.” With him was agent John Leslie from BORTAC’s Detroit detachment.

The other agents who answered Chavira’s call for help were Derek Volmering, a 39-year-old Michigan native, BORTAC supervisor, and onetime Buffalo Bills linebacker prospect; Paul Beaulieu, a New England native assigned to the Border Patrol’s rough-country search and rescue team; Edgar Vazquez, a 39-year-old firearms instructor from BORTAC who joined the Border Patrol in 2007; Padraic Daniel Berlin, who sicced his dog on a Nigerian immigrant during the South Side apartment raid two weeks earlier; David Dubar Jr., the BORTAC Michigan agent who’d also been on the South Side Apartments entry team, and supervisory agent Warren Becker from the Del Rio BORTAC detachment, who exchanged gunfire with the Uvalde school shooter in 2022 after the gunman executed 19 children.

The crew met a furious and growing civilian crowd. Television news crews arrived on the sidewalks. A CBP helicopter circled overhead. “It’s gonna be a nightmare getting out of here,” Volmering grumbled.

“Yeah, we’re probably going to get stuff thrown at us,” Bockstanz replied.

They immediately began positioning themselves around the scene. Two combat veterans, who reviewed incident body-camera footage for WIRED, said the agents moved in the same way that active-duty troops would to protect and extract a disabled vehicle from a hostile crowd in a war zone.

Tensions between the agents and the crowd escalated as someone threw an egg into the mass of feds, and agents tackled one of the onlookers to the ground in response. By then, Border Patrol agents had already donned gas masks and retrieved gas canisters from their vehicles in preparation for their exit.

Bockstanz heard an object strike one of the CBP vehicles and walked over to Volmering, who was speaking to a group of Chicago police commanders. “Hey, they’re starting to throw rocks,” Bockstanz said, his voice muffled by his gas mask. “I’m gonna have to deploy gas,” he told CPD deputy chief Dan O’Connor, who appeared to object. “We gotta worry about ourselves.”

“Well, give us a minute to talk to ’em and let’s go get you guys out of here,” O’Connor replied.

Bockstanz and Volmering ignored him. As projectiles sailed overhead and struck their cars, Bockstanz took a step forward, pulled the pin on a can of tear gas, and skipped it along the pavement towards the crowd without a warning, right through a line of unmasked Chicago cops.

Bockstanz waved to a Border Patrol SUV to leave and tossed another can of gas as the first one was thrown back, yelling, “Get the fuck out of here” at his colleagues. At the skirmish line, Dubar tossed his canisters into the crowd. Demonstrators began throwing and kicking gas canisters back toward the feds, prompting Vazquez, who had previously been involved in clashes with the public in Southern California and would later use less-lethal weapons on civilians in Minneapolis, to fire a round of tear gas at the fleeing crowd before the agents sped away.

More than a dozen cops and an unknown number of residents were sickened by the tear gas, with three American citizens arrested for “assaulting” federal agents, in addition to the two “deportable” people detained. No criminal charges were filed.

The operation tapered down by mid-November amid a national backlash and a series of adverse legal rulings that restricted the feds’ ability to use less-lethal and crowd-control munitions on civilians. While a key court decision was later overturned, the judge said in her opinion that Border Patrol, ICE, and CBP used force without clear warnings, failed to wear marking insignia, and failed to justify uses of force.

At least 3,800 people were arrested during Operation Midway Blitz as of late last year. More than 2,500 have been deported, and more than a hundred may have been illegally removed from the United States. None of the dozens of people whom BORTAC and BORSTAR agents arrested for alleged assaults or other crimes against them appear to have been convicted.

Six of the BORTAC agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz—Michael Sveum, Dubar, Vazquez, Delgado Jr., Belen Lleras, and Chavez—were involved in immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Boston, and other cities. Vazquez and Sveum used force on angry Minnesotans in the immediate aftermath of Renee Good’s killing, per reporting by Chicago outlet Unraveled. It does not appear that they have faced any internal discipline or criminal charges.

For Brian Kolp, the Chicago lawyer whose Irving Park street was shaken by the October 25 BORTAC raid, the incident had a “radicalizing effect” on him. He still seethes with rage about the masked Border Patrol agents, and has been working overtime to research legal strategies that would hold the feds accountable for brutalizing his neighbors and terrifying their children.

“I’m never gonna be satisfied,” Kolp says, “until there’s some kind of accountability and justice for what happened on my street.”

Additional reporting by Tim Marchman, Matt Giles, Samantha Spengler, and Andrew Couts.

Ali Winston is an independent reporter covering criminal justice, privacy, and extremism. He has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York magazine and has reported documentaries for BBC Panorama and PBS Frontline. His work has earned several honors, including a George Polk Award for Local Reporting, an ... Read More

Contributor

Maddy Varner is a senior reporter for WIRED. In the past, she was an investigative data journalist at The Markup, where she brought numbers to stories about labor, education and politics. Before The Markup, she was a researcher at ProPublica, where she was on a team that won a Loeb ... Read More

Senior Writer, Investigations

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The Wall Street Journal— hardly an outpost of left-wing propaganda — reported yesterday on the results of an investigation conducted by the Journal’sHannah Critchfield and her team.

I’m summarizing it below because it deserves your attention.

Critchfield and her team found that 279 people have been accused online by the Trump administration of assaulting federal ICE and Border Patrol agents, and more than half of these people — 64 percent — are American citizens.

Of the 181 American citizens that the Trump administration has accused of attacking federal ICE and Border Patrol officers, close to half have never been charged, and none have been convicted at trial. But the public charges alone have caused them significant harm.

The investigation

The Journal’s team analyzed more than 200 videos associated with allegations of assault against ICE and Border Patrol agents, using both police body camera footage and bystander recordings from social media. Many of the videos cast doubt on the federal government’s claims that agents were assaulted.

The Journal also reviewed more than 100,000 posts on X, posts made in the last year by accounts linked to government agencies and senior government officials.

Each time the government identified a person on a post, theJournal tracked that case through the legal system to see what charges were brought, under what statute, whether the charges were later modified, and what happened to the person in the case.

One of the cases they investigated was that of Sydney Lori Reid, a 44-year-old veterinary assistant in D.C. and a U.S. citizen.

In July, Reid went to a jail to witness an immigration enforcement action. Federal officers had gone there to arrest two migrant men, and Reid said she felt a duty to document it.

As Reid began videotaping, an agent grabbed her and pinned her to a wall. Reid was then surrounded by several federal law enforcement officials. One of them was an FBI agent wearing a face covering and an FBI vest. Two others were ICE officers, dressed in plain clothes, plaid shirts, and khaki pants.

Reid was handcuffed and told she was being arrested for interfering with their operation. Videos reviewed by Critchfield and her team cast doubt on the agents’ claims.

Reid was then placed in a government vehicle and transferred to federal custody. Like many American citizens who wind up in the crosshairs of DHS, she was accused of assault.

The government alleges she assaulted an FBI agent on the basis of scrapes on the agent’s hands, but the scrapes occurred in the process of putting handcuffs on Reid.

The government later charged Reid with felony assault of a federal official, a charge punishable with up to 20 years in prison — a serious federal charge that’s being applied far more broadly now than at any time in recent history.

When Reid was being arrested, she dropped her phone, but the phone was still recording. An agent picked up the phone and put it into the same vehicle that she was riding in on her way to detention.

One officer says: “We’re at the D.C. jail. We’re at the D.C. jail. We have an agitator in custody for ...”

Reid was handcuffed in the backseat. You can hear agents going back and forth about exactly how Reid had assaulted them. First, it was a raised knee, then an elbow.

Another officer: “Yeah, it appeared that there was an elbow that was ... When she was resisting, but she definitely interfered. So we have interfering and I’m going to get ...”

One of the ICE agents called her a stupid female as he was talking to a colleague: “Hey brother, are you good? I have to return to 1D and process this stupid female now that I f------ don’t want to process her.”

Reid was held by federal authorities for roughly two days. She wasn’t allowed to make a phone call during that time.

In the aftermath of her arrest, prosecutors tried to indict her, but that needed to be done through a grand jury, and the grand jury declined to indict her. They tried again before another grand jury, which also declined to indict her. Then they went back to a third grand jury, which declined to indict her.

This is almost unheard of. It showed both the resistance from the public to charge her based on the evidence and the government’s determination to bring charges in this case.

Prosecutors ultimately charged Reid with misdemeanor assault of an officer, a lesser offense that doesn’t require going through a grand jury. Reid was acquitted of that misdemeanor charge at trial.

The Trump Administration’s Strategy

Critchfield and her Journal team found that the push to charge more people for assaulting federal officers — as happened to Reid — is an administration-wide strategy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice have pledged to prosecute these cases aggressively. From the very beginning of Bondi’s tenure, starting on her first day in office, she issued a flurry of memos, including one that encouraged prosecutors to aggressively investigate any instances of violence against law enforcement or obstruction of law enforcement.

Gregory Bovino, then the head of Border Patrol, directed his agents to arrest anyone who touched them. “Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders all the way to the top, everybody f------ gets it if they touch you. You hear what I’m saying?”

In addition to an increasing number of prosecutions, the Department of Homeland Security has been using social media to exaggerate these alleged attacks, often with a warning to the public: “Don’t be like this person. If you behave in this way, we will come for you.” And they have posted people’s pictures and their full names, seeking to make an example out of these people even before they’re convicted of a crime.

This happened to Reid. A week after she was arrested, her mug shot and name went up on the official ICE account on X, along with the fact that she’s based in Washington, D.C., and a post that said, “Assault an officer or agent get arrested. It’s not rocket science.”

ICE also publicly alleged that Reid assaulted federal agents on behalf of two alleged international gang members.

The Purpose of This Strategy

The Journal’s investigation makes clear that the purpose of this strategy has been to intimidate and silence Americans who might otherwise protest what ICE and Border Patrol are doing.

ICE publicly describes many of these protesters as rioters, agitators, thugs, and terrorists.

Here’s Vice President JD Vance speaking of Renee Good’s death:

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers.”

And here’s then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the death of Alex Pretti:

“This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism, that’s the facts.”

Renee Good was in her car when she was killed. Critchfield and her team found that federal government officials have accused 32 U.S. citizens of intentionally using their vehicles as weapons. DHS considers a vehicle to be a deadly weapon, justifying the use of force. Of those 32 drivers, only one pleaded guilty to an assault charge. Three had their cases dismissed; the rest were never charged.

TheJournal investigation found that in most cases where citizens were accused by the government, the outcome was similar to Reid’s.

181 citizens were accused by the government on X of attacking federal officers, but close to half of them were never even charged at all. When people werecharged, more often than not, the cases fell apart. Either they were acquitted or found not guilty at trial.

Fifteen people mentioned in government posts pleaded guilty before going to trial. Ten of whom pleaded guilty for lesser offenses than what the government initially charged them with.

Videos have often played major roles in contradicting the government’s case. Critchfield and her team viewed videos that repeatedly cast doubt on the government’s allegations. Protesters were often called violent rioters or professional agitators and accused of making physical contact in some way with agents, but video footage often showed immigration agents being the first to lay their hands on demonstrators.

...MORE

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RWW

03/18/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

Markwayne Mullin has an incredible story. The Republican U.S. senator is an entrepreneur and former mixed martial arts fighter. That unique experience has been a core part of Mullin’s political brand and featured in multiple campaign ads, including one that showed off his punching bag workouts alongside footage of President Donald Trump declaring, “Markwayne Mullin, you don’t want to fight with him.” However, following his nomination by Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security, some aspects of Mullin’s record have come under scrutiny.

The late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's "sprawling web" continues to ensnare the MAGA movement.

Pastor-theologian Douglas Wilson advocates theocracy, the restriction of the franchise from women and nonbelievers, and much else—and he is closer than ever to real power.

A DHS insider noted Gregory Bovino had an internal investigation looming when he announced he was quitting.

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) claimed that having an identification card is required “to have a child” in the U.S. He did not elaborate as to when or to whom he thinks the ID would need to be presented.

Once a failed Senate candidate, Jackson Lahmeyer hopes to benefit from a party captured by Christian Nationalism.

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...After the fallout from Trump’s disastrous surge of DHS agents in Minnesota, which left two dead and resulted in scores of civil suits, many celebrated the replacement of Greg Bovino with border czar Tom Homan, but it is now becoming clear that the former’s violent mark has been left on the agency, with the changes implemented by Bovino and his allies now ingrained into the departmental culture.

As an example of this, a leaked internal memo issued two months before Border Patrol’s Minnesota blitz detailed how to get away with smashing a car window then dragging the occupant out with minimal legal liability. This has since become a common practice in cities across the country.

Another leaked memo rescinds borderland migrant entry safety guidelines implemented in 2022 that limited certain interdiction tactics in dangerous environments. As a result, Border Patrol agents are now allowed to arrest migrants in waterways and on the border fence, force them back into waterways or onto the wall, and forcibly remove them to the Mexican side of the border.

Bovino’s role in creating this aggressive enforcement culture is hard to deny. For example, a recent investigation determined that the border region overseen specifically by Bovino — who once praised an agent who had shot a US citizen five times as “excellent” — had the highest ratio of use-of-force incidents to assaults on agents of any sector in the nation, rating well above the average.

To counter Bovino’s impact on the agency, Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois has introduced the DHS Use of Force Oversight Act, which would implement a DHS policy addressing use of force and de-escalation.

“A Use of Force Policy should NOT be a suggestion — it should be mandated by law,” said Ramirez. “Let me be very clear: reforms are NOT enough. Americans are past reform of a department that has used taxpayer dollars to execute people in broad daylight. ICE must be abolished, and DHS dismantled.”

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AN 12 25

Federal law enforcement agencies are detaining US citizens who do not carry proof of their citizenship in what civil rights advocates describe as a flagrant violation of constitutional rights—and a top Trump administration official is claiming the government has the authority to do so.

A Somali-born Minnesota man was alarmed by the practice last Tuesday when immigration agents tackled him, handcuffed him, and arrested him, refusing to accept his REAL ID as proof of his legal residence in a video that was widely circulated on social media.

The man, who identified only as Mubashir, was placed into a chokehold and forced to his knees in the snow on his way to get food in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, which has a large Somali population.

As the Sahan Journal describes:

Mubashir said he told officers multiple times that he is a US citizen and asked if he could show them his ID. Officers ignored him, dragged him in the snow, and pushed him into a car as witnesses yelled and blew whistles, according to the video of his arrest.The arrest occurred as federal agents walked into nearby businesses in the Somali-heavy neighborhood, questioning people and asking them to show their passports. Mubashir said he was in the car with officers for about 20 minutes, asking them repeatedly if he could show them his ID. They refused, he said.

According to the report, officers asked if they could photograph Mubashir to check whether he’s a US citizen—likely to run his information through a facial recognition application that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has acknowledged it uses during immigration stops, including on US citizens without their consent.

Mubashir declined to have his photo taken, asking: “How would a picture prove I’m a US citizen?”

He was later taken to a federal building that houses an immigration court and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices. Only after having his fingerprint taken was Mubashir allowed to present his ID and given permission to leave.

Officers refused to drop him back off at Cedar-Riverside, instead telling him to walk home more than seven miles in the midst of a snowstorm, which had led authorities to issue a weather advisory.

“I deserve to be here like anyone else—I’m a US citizen,” Mubashir said. “I can’t even step outside without being tackled—no question—because I’m Somali.”

“I apologize that this happened to you in my city, with people wearing vests that say ‘police.’ That’s embarrassing,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said to Mubashir during a press conference on Wednesday.

According to legal experts, there is no requirement under US law that American citizens must be prepared to prove their citizenship at a moment’s notice.

In comments to KQED, a public radio station in San Francisco, earlier this month, Richard Boswell, a law professor at the University of California Law School, called it “most troubling” that US citizens have felt the need to carry their ID to avoid harassment.

“There is no reason why government officers can or should be questioning people about their citizenship without any reason to suspect that they are noncitizens who are here unlawfully,” he explained.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), noncitizens must carry proof of their legal status, such as a green card or a foreign passport with stamps indicating a lawful visa.

About two dozen states require residents to identify themselves if stopped by law enforcement. But none require citizens to carry a physical ID at all times, except in specific cases, such as operating a motorized vehicle.

And, as Bree Bernwanger, a senior attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, explained, “there is no legal requirement that US citizens carry papers or have proof of their citizenship on them.” Unless police have reasonable suspicion that a person is in the US unlawfully, she said, “there shouldn’t be a reason to have to carry your papers, because immigration agents aren’t supposed to stop people or detain them.”

But as backlash rolled in from the video of Mubashir’s arrest, the man leading Trump’s mass deportation crusade, US Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, seemed to falsely suggest via social media that citizens are required to carry proof of their citizenship.

“One must carry immigration documents as per the INA. A REAL ID is not an immigration document,” he wrote in response to a post about Mubashir’s arrest, which noted his citizenship.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, responded that “in no way does the INA require citizens to carry immigration documents” and that Bovino is “just letting his jackboot thugs presumptively detain whomever they like.”

Immigration lawyer Jared McClain later noted on social media that, in response to a class-action suit arguing against indiscriminate workplace raids, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) argued that an Alabama construction worker, who was kept in handcuffs even after presenting multiple REAL IDs to agents, had still not done enough to prove his citizenship, according to the federal officers.

“This is the official policy—not a one-off,” McClain said.

Aaron Reichlin Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the filing was “official confirmation that ICE HSI believes that it can, in fact, detain US citizens for immigration checks, and keep them handcuffed while they have their biometrics run.”

“That is a chilling assertion,” he said.

ProPublicafound in October that at least 170 Americans have been detained by immigration agents, sometimes for days, with some having been “dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot.”

But months after the report was published, top administration officials—including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—continue to emphatically deny that any US citizens have been detained during the second Trump administration.

At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday, Noem abruptly left before Democrats could grill her on reports that citizens had been arrested, claiming she had to speak at a different committee hearing. Reports later found that the hearing had already been cancelled, leading to accusations that Noem misled Congress.

In response to Bovino’s assertion that REAL IDs are not immigration documents, Nicole Foy, a reporter at ProPublica, toldthe Border Patrol commander: “We’ve been trying to request an interview with you for months now about the enforcement operations you’re leading and the detention of US citizens.”

“Why does a US citizen need to carry immigration documents?” she asked. At press time, Bovino had not publicly responded to Foy’s question.

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In a new 233-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis found that many top officials in President Donald Trump's administration "lied multiple times" under oath.

The Thursday ruling issued a preliminary injunction barring federal agents from using force in Chicago. It has already been appealed and put on hold by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Chicago Sun Times reporter Jon Seidel said.

Legal analysts Mark Joseph Stern of Slate and independent journalist Julie DiCaro sorted through the lengthy opinion, finding citations of "widespread misrepresentations that call into question everything" they "say they are doing in their characterization of what is happening."

Her ruling then claims that their testimony is objectively false, Stern said, broadly discrediting the Trump administration.

"After reviewing all the evidence submitted to the Court and listening to the testimony elicited at the preliminary injunction hearing, during depositions, and in other court proceedings, the Court finds Defendants’ evidence simply not credible," Ellis said, according to DiCaro.

At one point, in footnote six, DiCaro cited Ellis writing, "In another case considering some of the same evidence presented to this Court, another court in this district also found that the perceptions of certain of Defendants’ declarants, such as [Russell] Hott and [Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Daniel] Parra, were not reliable."

"But a review of [evidence submitted by Defendants] shows the opposite — supporting Plaintiffs’ claims and undermining all of Defendants’ claims that their actions toward protesters, the press, and religious practitioners have been, as Bovino has stated, 'more than exemplary,'"the judge also wrote.

In a section where she addressed the testimony of Gregory Bovino, commander-at-large of the U.S. Border Patrol, Judge Ellis found that he also lied under oath on several occasions.

"When shown a video of agents hitting Rev. Black with pepper balls, Bovino denied seeing a projectile hit Rev. Black in the head," Judge Ellis wrote.

"In another video ...he obviously tackles [Scott] Blackburn [one of Plaintiffs’ declarants]...But instead of admitting to using force against Blackburn, Bovino denied it and ...stated that force was used against him,"the ruling continued.

"Most tellingly, Bovino admitted in his deposition that he lied multiple times about the events that occurred in Little Village that prompted him to throw tear gas at protesters," the judge added.

"Defendants, however, cannot simply create their own narrative of what happened, misrepresenting the evidence to justify their actions," the judge wrote.

She ultimately explains, "These are not the only inconsistencies and incredible representations in the record. While Defendants may argue that the Court identifies only minor inconsistencies, every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe."

Read the full ruling here.

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AN 11 25

ABC News reports the Border Patrol official in charge of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago admitted to lying about a thrown rock before launching tear gas at protesters.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said Thursday that Patrol Commander Greg Bovino fabricated claims about the Oct. 23 incident, which was caught on camera with Bovino throwing a gas canister at demonstrators in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood without giving a verbal warning — a violation of the judge's earlier temporary restraining order limiting the use of force, the judge said. That same day, the judge issued a preliminary injunction limiting the use of force during immigration arrests and protests.

"Mr. Bovino and the Department of Homeland Security claimed that he had been hit by a rock in the head before throwing the tear gas, but video evidence disproves this. And he ultimately admitted he was not hit until after he threw the tear gas," Ellis said.

DHS initially defended Bovino's actions saying that a Border Patrol transport van transporting undocumented immigrants was attacked by demonstrators.

"The mob of rioters grew more hostile and violent, advancing toward agents and began throwing rocks and other objects at agents, including one that struck Chief Greg Bovino in the head," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an October statement.

But Bovino proved McLaughlin’s statement incorrect.

ABC News reached out to DHS in the aftermath of Bovino’s confession but DHS officials responded by criticizing the judge's decision to grant a preliminary injunction.

“This injunction is an extreme act by an activist judge that risks the lives and livelihoods of law enforcement officers,” the official said.

Commenters on X slammed Bovino’s dishonesty.

“I’d sure as s—— go to jail if had lied about my actions,” posted retired veteran Scott Warhin on X.

“In any other era in America, Greg Bovino would immediately be fired for flagrantly lying under oath in court,” complained another critic on X. “But Trump loves criminals and miscreants. America has had enough of this s—— show.”

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MMA

October 27, 2025 edition of *The Faulkner Focus

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): How much of this can they take? Imagine living near protesting gone violent like this. Voters, working Americans, families, anyone dealing with the overflow and residual effects of attacks on federal agents like endangering the lives of even the non-violent protestors caught up in the riots and local law enforcement. This is untenable, it's dangerous. Federal officials say rioters assaulted Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, plus Border Patrol agents who had to deploy tear gas to try to stem the chaos.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered the Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino to testify tomorrow about his use of tear gas in a separate incident last weekend in a Chicago neighborhood. Homeland Security officials say he followed proper protocol and that those agents were under attack by rioters. Now remember, when Bovino joined us on The Faulkner Focus a couple of weeks ago, we knew that he'd been doxxed and there were hit out on him. The anti-violence is growing. Anti-ice violence. And now, Democrats are actually pushing ahead with a plan to launch that master ICE tracker that Bovino and I talked about on this program. It will enable federal agents' activities to go up on a live map. So it will be uploaded to the Democrat Party website, doxxing the agents and their locations. Here is acting ICE director Todd Lyons.

...

FAULKNER: By the way, the placement of that tracker just went up a notch. It is not just their party website, it's the U.S. House Democrat committee website. We're in the middle of a government shutdown but they have time to put this up on their House committee page, the Democrats. The new column calls that ICE tracking Democrats' most reckless move to the moment. An excerpt here. "With the party's approval rating sinking and most Americans supporting Trump's deportation efforts, clinging to the far-left borders on political suicide. At a time when Democrats should be tacking toward the center, they're doubling down on extremism — and this latest gambit could prove deadly." Ari Fleischer, Fox News contributor, former white house press secretary. What are we missing about the Democrats' thirst for violence? It feels real.

ARI FLEISCHER (GUEST): I want to put a little historical context into this. Prior to the civil war, southern states led by then vice president John Calhoun advocated something called nullification. That if the federal government passed a law that a southern state didn't like, it was nullified. The southern states had the right not to follow federal law. This is a modern day nullification crisis. In Chicago, they are saying federal law doesn't matter. Federal agents do not matter. We the locals can do whatever we want, including violence. This is devastating for rule of law in the United States. It's also devastating for the Democrats politically. There is no support for this outside the extremes of the Democratic party that just want people to come to America illegally and once they are here remain here safely. The Democrats are indeed committing political suicide.

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cal matters

In summary

The immigration raids across Los Angeles have all the hallmarks of Gregory Bovino’s Kern County sweep, which a federal judge says likely violated the Constitution.

The day after Congress certified President Donald Trump’s victory, Gregory Bovino led his Border Patrol agents hundreds of miles north, sweeping through Kern County in an audacious immigration raid that shocked the local agricultural community.

At the time, Bovino, chief of the El Centro sector, said that his agents had a “predetermined list of targets,” many of whom had criminal records, before they set off for Kern County. “We did our homework,” he said.

In the weeks after, both the factual and legal foundation of Bovino’s bold sweep crumbled. Border Patrol documents obtained by CalMatters showed that 77 of the 78 people his agents arrested had no prior record with the agency.

Then, a federal judge ruled the wide-net sweep – based on random, warrantless stops where day laborers and farm workers congregate – likely violated the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security promised to re-train Bovino’s 900-plus agents on the Constitution. But that wasn’t enough. The judge issued an injunction forbidding the Border Patrol from conducting similar raids in California’s Central Valley.

“You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” said U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer L. Thurston.

It appears Bovino’s stock has only risen within the Trump administration since.

On Thursday, Bovino – in his green uniform, with his high-and-tight hairdo – stood next to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and announced that he has been in charge of Customs and Border Protection operations in Los Angeles. Indeed, the immigration raids that sparked the protests have all the hallmarks of Bovino’s Kern County operation.

Federal agents picked up day laborers outside of a Home Depot in Westlake. They went after car wash workers in Los Angeles and garment workers in Downtown LA. And farm workers have reported that Border Patrol agents have been conducting operations around the strawberry fields of Oxnard.

Bovino doesn’t distinguish between field workers or paleteros and fentanyl dealers. To him, they all fit one category: “Bad people.”

“For Customs and Border Protection, that’s why we are here right now, is to remove those bad people and bad things, whether illegal aliens, drugs or otherwise,” he said at the press conference Thursday. “We are here and we’re not going away.”

At this point, Bovino’s rapid rise from one of 20 section chiefs around the country to the face of Trump’s aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles almost seems inevitable. His team employs a group of five agents to make videos, cranking out dramatic, fictionalized videos portraying migrants crossing the border as menaces with a bloodlust to commit crimes.

Bovino seems to relish the camera himself. The El Centro sector posts staged photos of him in uniform, including a closeup with an AR-15, and one on a white horse in the desert, cradling a shotgun. Inan interview with CalMatters in February, flanked by a wall of armed agents, he taunted his other Border Patrol counterparts. “Twenty sectors in the U.S. Border Patrol, and we do call ourselves the ‘Premiere Sector,’” he said with a smile. “So please let those other chiefs know we said that.”

Bovino likes to praise President Dwight Eisenhower, who led the largest deportation in American history, rounding up 1.3 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans in 1954. The first buses deporting migrants – in what was called “Operation Wetback” – rolled out of El Centro over 70 years ago.

The Kern County raids were pitched as a “proof of concept” for how the Border Patrol could be mobilized for mass deportation operations away from the border. It’s exactly the kind of operation that, according to the Wall Street Journal, top White House aide Stephen Miller wanted to see when he convened top immigration officials in late May and demanded more aggressive action. Miller, the Journal reported, told officials they didn’t need targeted lists of immigrants – they should instead just go to Home Depots, inspiring the LA raids.

Now, Bovino, at the same press conference in which agents handcuffed Sen. Alex Padilla after the senator tried asking questions of Noem, said he’s sticking around.

“You’ll continue to see us in Los Angeles,” he said. “Not going anywhere soon.”

A new series of raids in California

Bovino labeled the Kern County sweeps “Operation Return to Sender.” Over three days, his agents detained day laborers, farm workers and others in a Home Depot parking lot, outside a convenience store and along a highway between orchards.

The ACLU sued on behalf of United Farm Workers, arguing that the indiscriminate stops violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

The judge hasn’t yet ruled on the full case, but found the ACLU was likely to succeed, and issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Border Patrol agents from taking similar actions. That restricts them from stopping people unless they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in violation of U.S. immigration law. It also bars agents from carrying out warrantless arrests unless they have probable cause that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

The injunction only applies to the Central Valley, but similar legal challenges could await after the latest wave of sweeps.

Advocates are still trying to get a handle on the scope and details of federal actions over the last week.

Just after dawn on Tuesday, Border Patrol agents and other federal officers swept across Ventura, Kern, and Tulare counties, according to the United Farm Workers.

UFW provided CalMatters with a video that shows a white and green Border Patrol truck pulling up to a business in Moorpark. Two masked agents emerged and arrested a man in a baseball cap and neon yellow work shirt who was opening the gate just before 9 a.m.

A video shared on social media by ABC7 shows officers in green Border Patrol uniforms chasing a farmworker through an Oxnard field. Another video shot from a different angle shows a green and white Border Patrol truck racing along the edge of the farm fields.

The agents appear to catch the worker, but it is unclear what happens after that. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” said Antonio de Loera-Brust, a spokesman for UFW. The labor union representing farm workers is working to contact families affected by the raids.

Other videos show white and green vehicles typically used by Border Patrol, but so far, the agency has not confirmed their participation. A spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency for Border Patrol, told CalMatters to direct our questions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A spokesperson for ICE told CalMatters to contact Customs and Border Protection with our questions.

“We’ve seen videos of Border Patrol trucks tearing through farmlands. I’ve heard reports of operations in farmlands, and we’re still investigating if the court’s order has been violated,” said Bree Bernwanger, an attorney with ACLU Northern California, which brought the Kern County suit.

“The Fourth Amendment really prohibits immigration agents from doing sweeps of communities, from doing racial profiling, from targeting people just because they’re Brown or looking like a farm worker.”

Oxnard Mayor Luis McArthur said his office has also received disturbing reports of immigration officials trying to enter agricultural fields and conducting vehicle stops.

“These actions are completely unjustified and harmful. They create chaos and distress in our community without contributing to public safety,” he said. “The individuals affected by these operations; they’re not criminals. They’re hardworking families who make meaningful contributions to our local economy and to our greater community.”

Elizabeth Strater, vice president of the UFW, said that a number of employers stopped federal agents from accessing their land.

“All across California one thing that is good to hear is that we can confirm in a number of locations federal agents attempted to enter a worksite and were repelled because the employer took the practical steps, like gates, and told the agents that they couldn’t come onto the property,” she said.

In February, Bovino denied that his agents had gone after farmworkers.

“For us, targeting agricultural workers at their job, absolutely not. That has no merit,” he said. “But when Border Patrol comes into contact with illegal aliens, you’re going to get arrested.”

He promised to take his fight across the state. “Our area goes through Central California all the way to the Oregon border, so anywhere in that area, we are going to go where that threat is, and where we can do the most damage to bad people and bad things as we possibly can,” Bovino said.

For now, that’s Los Angeles. Bovino said at the Thursday press conference he had several hundred agents and officers there.

“Many millions of illegal aliens have passed across that border over the past several years. It’s our job to get them out,” he said. “And that’s what we’re going to do and what we’re doing right now.”

more on the border patrol

Border Patrol said it targeted known criminals in Kern County. But it had no record on 77 of 78 arrestees

by Sergio Olmos and Wendy Fry

Judge restricts Border Patrol in California: ‘You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin’

by Sergio Olmos and Wendy Fry

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WBEZ

https://www.wbez.org › immigration › 2025 › 10 › 27 › who-is-gregory-bovino-border-patrol-chicago-midway-blitz

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Could Greg Bovino go to jail? Border Patrol chief summoned to court for throwing tear gas can in ...

Could Greg Bovino go to jail? Border Patrol chief summoned to court for throwing tear gas can in ...

stg-hindustantimes.com

AP News

https://apnews.com › article › gregory-bovino-immigration-takeaways-282bcb88d370a77e5188ef97931aff6e

Gregory Bovino's norm-shattering command of immigration enforcement in ...

Sep 4, 2025Two years ago Gregory Bovino was relieved of command of the Border Patrol's El Centro, California, sector and encouraged to retire.

NPR Illinois

https://www.nprillinois.org › illinois › 2025-10-27 › border-patrol-commander-greg-bovino-ordered-to-testify-in-federal-court

Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino ordered to testify in federal court

TodayCHICAGO — U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who has spent the last 5 ½ weeks running the Trump administration's "Operation Midway Blitz" immigration enforcement campaign in the Chicago area, has been ordered to testify in federal court Tuesday after allegations he ...

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Chicago Sun-Times

https://chicago.suntimes.com › immigration › 2025 › 10 › 24 › federal-judge-orders-border-patrol-commander-greg-bovino-into-her-courtroom

Federal judge orders Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino into her ...

3 days agoThe order came one day after Bovino was accused of tossing tear gas into a crowd in Little Village without justification.

ABC News

https://abcnews.go.com › US › judge-orders-cbp-official-leading-immigration-crackdown-chicago › story?id=126848307

Judge orders CBP official leading immigration crackdown to appear in ...

3 days agoGreg Bovino, who is commanding CBP field operations in Chicago for Operation Midway Blitz, has been ordered to appear in person for a status hearing on Tuesday.

CNN

https://www.cnn.com › 2025 › 10 › 08 › politics › gregory-bovino-border-patrol-chicago-immigration

Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino leads Chicago immigration crackdown ...

Oct 8, 2025US Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino is interviewed at CNN's bureau in Chicago on Tuesday.

WTTW News

https://news.wttw.com › 2025 › 10 › 24 › federal-judge-orders-border-patrol-chief-greg-bovino-who-fired-tear-gas-little-village

Federal Judge Orders Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, Who Fired Tear ...

3 days agoThe judge's order came less than 24 hours after Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino fired tear gas at a crowd during an aggressive raid in Little Village.

CalMatters

https://calmatters.org › investigation › 2025 › 06 › los-angeles-border-patrol-chief

Meet the man currently leading Border Patrol's operations in LA

Jun 13, 2025The day after Congress certified President Donald Trump's victory, Gregory Bovino led his Border Patrol agents hundreds of miles north, sweeping through Kern County in an audacious immigration raid that shocked the local agricultural community. At the time, Bovino, chief of the El Centro sector ...

New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 2025 › 08 › 29 › us › gregory-bovino-immigration-california.html

Gregory Bovino Is Leading the California Immigration Crackdown - The ...

Aug 29, 2025Gregory Bovino has orchestrated thousands of arrests, using confrontational tactics that have made him a MAGA star. His critics say he's crossing legal and political lines.

WTOP News

https://wtop.com › national › 2025 › 09 › turn-and-burn-head-of-los-angeles-campaign-shows-how-immigration-agents-are-racking-up-arrests

Gregory Bovino, head of Los Angeles campaign, shows how ... - WTOP

Sep 4, 2025LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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…---