Leaked documents and the accounts of multiple Department of Homeland Security employees paint a picture of the U.S. Border Patrol being remade in the image of its former commander-at-large Gregory Bovino. As the high-visibility leader of DHS’s blitzkrieg across American cities, Bovino has been sanctioned by a federal judge, condemned by civil rights groups, and ultimately sent back to his home district of El Centro, California, after acting, to quote President Trump, like a “pretty out there kind of guy.”
Bovino’s tenure has resulted in multiple civil suits and the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti and Renee Good. He is reportedly under investigation by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty for numerous incidents of unlawful conduct. But he clearly believes in the righteousness of his cause. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting of a third citizen in Chicago, Marimar Martinez, Bovino praised the Border Patrol agent. “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” Bovino wrote.
While Bovino’s replacement with Trump border czar Tom Homan was initially met with celebration from quiescent Democrats and their allies in the media, the reality is that an inner circle of Bovino allies continues to shape the agency’s incursion into the American heartland and its operational culture writ large. Democrats’ refusal to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without marginal oversight and reforms will likely prove futile in the face of these internal policy changes.
According to a leaked November memorandum—prior to the Border Patrol’s incursion into Minneapolis, and two months into Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago—guidance was issued across the Border Patrol to clarify how to smash suspects’ car windows and extract them from vehicles while minimizing legal liability.
“Courts evaluate the totality of the circumstances: no single factor is determinative. Your detailed articulation of the event, including prescribed threats and rationale for actions, is crucial for legal defensibility,” the memo states.
It goes on to clarify that while pulling suspects through a broken window may go too far, “breaking a window to remove the driver or passenger may ultimately become necessary … Courts favor measured and ascending uses of force when provided with clear warnings … Use only objectively reasonable and necessary force to carry out your law enforcement duties.”
Tactics like these that are now being used in cities, like lethal force and forced removal from automobiles, were developed and honed away from news cameras, across the vast deserts and canyons that make up America’s borderlands. Here too, the policy is changing. A second leaked document details the rollback of Border Patrol policy limiting use of force at the border.
A February 9th memo rescinds a 2022 noncitizen migrant entry safety guidance that once limited certain actions during interdictions on the border. The critical section of the rescindment reads: “The 2022 Non-Citizen Migrant Entry Safety Guidance imposed significant restrictions on interdiction tactics, particularly in hazardous environments, which diminished the ability of agents to respond proactively to illegal crossings. These limitations negatively impacted operational effectiveness, allowing smuggling organizations to quickly adapt and exploit weakened enforcement postures. As a result, deterrence and apprehension efforts were undermined, impeding our mission to secure the border.”
Those rollbacks allow Border Patrol agents to engage and arrest migrants in waterways, on the border fence, and amid other barriers. It also allows agents to force individuals back into waterways or onto the wall, and most importantly, it rolls back a provision barring agents from forcibly removing migrants to the Mexican side of the border.
Two DHS employees told the Prospect that these changes encourage a reckless approach at the border, feeding the increase in use of force across U.S. cities. “This is a cycle that starts at the border, enters the cities, emboldens excessive force, and then cycles back to the border when these guys finish their rotations,” one DHS employee said.
That reality and Bovino’s role in shaping it was underscored by an investigation conducted by the Project on Government Oversight, which found that the specific border region overseen by Bovino—El Centro—had the highest ratio of use-of-force incidents to assaults on agents of any of the 20 Border Patrol sectors in the nation, coming in well above the overall Border Patrol average.
“Since its establishment, DHS has operated without a legal requirement to establish and abide by basic policies, such as Use of Force policies. They have been empowered through a lack of oversight and too much latitude to violate our rights under the pretense of securing our safety,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) told the Prospect via text message in response to the document leak. “A Use of Force Policy should NOT be a suggestion—it should be mandated by law.” Ramirez has introduced the DHS Use of Force Oversight Act, which would statutorily require a DHS policy on use of force and de-escalation by agents.
“But let me be very clear: reforms are NOT enough,” Ramirez added. “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.”
According to the two DHS sources, special agents and officials from El Centro were key to Bovino’s efforts in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis, thanks to their alignment with the commander’s efforts to conduct a militaristic shock-and-awe campaign. Some of those allies who traveled with Bovino from El Centro or volunteered to join his effort from other sectors were identified as Rachel McCaslin, a Border Patrol intelligence officer and assistant to Bovino; Deputy Incident Commander Kyle Harvick; Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Daniel Parra; Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David Kim; Border Patrol Agent Juan Di Bella; Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Kristopher Hewson; and Deputy Patrol Agent in Charge and national Border Patrol chaplain Jerami Cheatwood.
Depositions and discovery materials from the multitude of court cases enveloping CBP and ICE’s immigration push buoy DHS employees’ accounts of these agents and officers’ role in carrying out Bovino’s agenda. Hewson testified in November in a hearing on excessive use of force before a federal judge that tear gas was not dangerous and was by no means a weapon of last resort.
Parra was also deposed, testifying under oath that he carried out the operational component of Bovino’s strategic plan and reported directly to Bovino during Operation Midway Blitz. David Kim has sat for multiple interviews posted across social media to effusively praise the Bovino doctrine of smash-and-grab tactics, despite DHS’s widespread warnings about the dangers of its employees being doxed. That warning has similarly failed to dissuade agent Juan Di Bella from maintaining a public Instagram profile.
And while this list represents the inner circle that worked to carry out Bovino’s orders on the ground and in tactical command centers, the Trump administration has quietly replaced over a dozen field office leaders with officers from CBP and the Border Patrol. “While the previous administration rode over the Border Patrol, this administration is riding with us,” Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said in an interview posted on the CBP website. “I think that is huge because nothing motivates agents more than knowing that if they go out there and do their job, they’re not going to be tried and prosecuted on national TV by the administration.”
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