The official, Gregory Bovino, is within the Chicago space as federal officers vow to provoke a blitz of arrests within the area concentrating on immigrants suspected of being within the U.S. illegally, in accordance with the sources, who requested anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to talk to the press. Bovino was the highest Border Patrol agent in California’s El Centro sector till he was given command of a broader immigration enforcement marketing campaign throughout the state in June.
Over the previous a number of months, Bovino has change into one of the crucial seen public faces of the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to detain these residing within the nation unlawfully. He has accompanied rank-and-file brokers on arrest operations and posted slickly edited movies of these sweeps on social media.
Gregory Bovino walks as a big group of federal regulation enforcement officers arrive at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July 7, 2025.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP through Getty Photographs
In California, Bovino oversaw an effort by Customs and Border Safety, dubbed Operation At Giant. Underneath that operation, Border Patrol brokers, whose jobs have traditionally been restricted to stopping the illicit entry of migrants and medicines into the nation, have arrested unauthorized immigrants in locations removed from a U.S. border, like Los Angeles and Sacramento.
Bovino has personally led a number of the operations, together with arrests outdoors of House Depot shops and a show-of-force at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles that concerned mounted Border Patrol brokers and armored automobiles.
In July, a federal choose in Los Angeles dominated that a number of the immigration stops in southern California had been predicated on components like race, language, occupation and placement, as an alternative of an affordable suspicion that the topics of stops have been within the U.S. illegally. The choose barred federal brokers within the area from basing arrests on these components. On Monday, the Supreme Court docket paused the decrease courtroom’s order.
Bovino appeared to preview his deployment to Chicago final week, saying in a video he shared on social media that his crew can be “taking this show on the road, to a city near you.”
“We’re gonna trade these palm trees for some skyscrapers, and the mission continues,” he stated to the tune of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”
CNN reported on Monday that Bovino was being deployed to Chicago. A U.S. official stated Bovino arrived final Friday in Chicago, the place he’s anticipated to guide operations by CBP. The Trump administration has tasked the company, which is a part of the Division of Homeland Safety, with being extra closely concerned with inside immigration enforcement amid a historic drop in unlawful crossings on the southern border in latest months.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has historically overseen immigration enforcement within the U.S. inside, this week launched an operation within the Chicago space that officers say will goal immigrants within the U.S. illegally who even have legal data. Officers have referred to as the trouble Operation Halfway Blitz.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, criticized the operation’s announcement on Monday, saying the Trump administration needs to be coordinating with state officers to curtail crime.
“Instead of taking steps to work with us on public safety, the Trump Administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisians,” he wrote on X.
Requested to touch upon Bovino’s arrival in Chicago, a spokesperson for DHS replied, “Stay tuned.”
Over the weekend, DHS introduced one other ICE arrest operation within the Boston space, dubbed Patriot 2.0, that officers say is concentrated on unauthorized immigrants with legal data.
