Former Border Patrol Chief Calls Minneapolis Agent Pullout a Capitulation

Greg Bovino, the former Border Patrol chief who led the immigration enforcement push in Minneapolis, said the Trump administration's decision to pull hundreds of agents from the state amounted to a surrender. Speaking to the BBC from Detroit, where he was campaigning for tougher enforcement, Bovino said the administration "threw the towel in" and that deportation activity had reached a "virtual standstill". About 700 agents left Minnesota after the operation, with White House border tsar Tom Homan taking over.

Bovino, 56, was removed from his post shortly after US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot dead in January. Both shootings were recorded on video, triggering bipartisan criticism and protests. President Donald Trump said at the time he was "going to de-escalate a little bit" before ordering agents out. Bovino said he regretted "not going harder in Minnesota and arresting even more illegal aliens" and called his agents the "real victims" of the mission, describing it as the most violent law enforcement operation in US history.

The family of Renee Good filed two civil lawsuits against the administration earlier this month, alleging wrongful death and a conspiracy to interfere with the civil rights of protesters. The filings name senior officials including Bovino and Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot Good, "for their respective individual roles in the operation that led to Renee's death". The suits argue the operation created "an unprecedented environment for state-sponsored violence". A White House spokeswoman has previously called the lawsuits "baseless". Bovino told the BBC he was "not responding" to the litigation, adding that "people do lawsuits all the time".

Lawyers for the Good family said Bovino was "spewing propaganda" and could not be "judge, jury and executioner". They said their legal team "looks forward to the depositions of Mr Bovino and all of the defendants in this matter". Asked whether video evidence undercut his position that Good and Pretti posed a threat to agents, Bovino said the recordings showed "violence was perpetrated against agents of the US government" and that "people need to follow the law". Trump initially said Good "violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer". Weeks later he called her death a "tragedy" and said agents were sometimes "going to make a mistake".

Bovino said he did not know why he was replaced. "You'd have to ask the administration. I still haven't gotten the final word on that," he said. Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary during the operation, was fired by Trump in March. Bovino has since retired from the Border Patrol.

Bovino has called for "total spectrum immigration enforcement" supported by the military and has claimed, without providing evidence, that 100 million people are in the US illegally. A White House spokesperson said Trump had "delivered the largest reduction in illegal immigration in modern history" and that more than 3 million people had left the country under his policies.

He also raised the prospect of a 2028 presidential campaign. "If politicians aren't going to step up and do their job then you might see something happen," he said. Bovino recently spoke at a rally in Michigan where activists called for the deportation of Abdul El-Sayed, a US-born citizen and Democratic Senate candidate.