Ex-U.S. Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino defends immigration tactics
· Toronto Sun
Days away from his retirement at the U.S. Border Patrol, the federal agency’s former top official, Gregory Bovino, showed no regrets for his uncompromising approach to curb illegal immigration, and said he wished he had deported even more immigrants.
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“I wish I’d caught even more illegal aliens,” he told the New York Times in an interview published on Tuesday. “I mean, we went as hard as we could, but there’s always a creative and innovative solution to catching even more.”
Bovino was demoted by U.S. President Donald Trump in January shortly after the deaths of two people during confrontations with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
The 55-year-old announced his retirement from the patrol earlier this month.
Speaking to the Times , the 55-year-old, who was the face of Trump’s deportation blitz in several cities, said his retirement wasn’t entirely voluntary and offered his take on his tough enforcement tactics.
“We wanted total border domination,” Bovino said. “When you use terms like that, perhaps it scares some of the weaker-minded people. Domination. I want you to dominate that border. I’m not going to ‘control’ it. We’re going to dominate the hell out of that damn place.”
Former border ‘commander-at-large’ refers to president as ‘the Trumpster’
Bovino began his career at the Border Patrol stationed in El Centro, Calif., 30 years ago, and quickly rose to prominence after he was tapped by Trump to lead Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.
In January, two Minneapolis protesters, Alex Pretti and Renee Good , died in separate shootings involving ICE agents as tensions soared over the presence of masked agents conducting immigration raids in their state.
Bovino had previously told the Associated Press he had a “turn and burn” approach to racking up immigration arrests before protesters could descend on them.
Trump would eventually replace Bovino with border czar Tom Homan in Minnesota, sending the “commander-at-large” back to his old job as chief patrol agent in El Centro.
Despite his demotion, Bovino praised the U.S. president in the Times interview, saying he received “a lot of kudos from the Trumpster.”