How would you feel if you got a dream gig and it ended in humiliation because of you?
Gregory Bovino has the rest of his life to think about. Friday is a Border Patrol lifeguard’s last day on the job after 30 years — and he’s not going because he wants to.
For the past year, the self-described “hillbilly” was a symbol of the Trump administration’s xenophobic deportation deluge. Helicopter raids on apartment complexes, tear gas thrown into large crowds, defiance of court orders, glamorous photo shoots: no municipality was too big, no strategy was so crazy, no quote was so inflammatory for Bovino as he treated immigrant neighborhoods like the shores of Normandy.
The North Carolina native’s caravan of brutality soon earned him a promotion from El Centro sector chief to Border Patrol commander at large, a new position tailor-made for him. He accepted the role of migra The bogeyman is like a boy dragging down a bowl of warheads, always promising more exile, more chaos, more More.
Not anymore.
In January, Border Patrol agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretty during a protest against them, weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer did the same to mother of three Renee Good. Bovino took a dig at the case by claiming, without offering any evidence, that Preeti wanted to commit a “massacre of law enforcement.” These events have so incensed the public toward immigration agents that a Public Religion Research Institute poll released this week showed that only 35% of Americans surveyed approved of how Trump is handling immigration, compared to 48% a year earlier.
Bovino was sent back to El Centro and lost his social media privileges, where he had long posted disturbing videos gushing about what a hilarious person he was. Even Trump became his target migra The man, telling Fox News that Bovino was “a very different kind of guy… and in some ways that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good (in Minneapolis).”
When we met I should have warned Bovino that failure was his destiny.
Setting: Fox 11 Los Angeles studios in July. Bovino and I were scheduled to do separate interviews with Alex Michaelson, the station’s former anchor. Bovino was in the midst of his Los Angeles invasion, in which immigration agents cordoned off MacArthur Park, stormed Home Depot and car washes and appeared outside the Japanese American National Museum while politicians inside denounced Trump.
Dressed in full Border Patrol uniform with a clip-on walkie-talkie over the shoulder, the man was presenting himself as a modern-day Charles Martel defending the homeland from the invading infidels. The nasally speaking Bovino told Michaelson how “Ma and Pa America” ​​deserves a country free of undocumented immigrants and vowed to stay in Los Angeles “until the operation is over.”
Then-U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, center, with Border Patrol agents after a show of force outside the Japanese American National Museum at Edward R. Roybal marching to the federal building where Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a redistricting press conference in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
After their interview, Bovino and three Border Patrol agents went into the greenroom to get some homemade cookies while I sat on a couch. He looked me in the eye as he bent to sign Michelson’s guest book, as if he expected me not only to recognize him but to say something.
It was like watching someone do an impersonation, one part Lt. Colonel Kilgore from “Apocalypse Now” and two parts Henry Hawk, the small, dashing Looney Tunes character who was always trying to catch the much larger Foghorn Leghorn. He really thought his scorched-earth attack on L.A. would defeat the city and convince other communities to pull no punches once Bovino’s self-titled “Green Machine” came to town.
The opposite happened.
People who had never been concerned with politics — even some who voted for Trump or at least agreed with deporting immigrants with criminal convictions — rose up to protest. A front formed everywhere — social media, the streets, the courts — and Southern California activists began sharing notes among themselves and with communities across the country to prepare for what happened. la migra. Bovino retreated at every insult instead of focusing on his mission, not realizing that his carelessness was eroding public support for his cause and jeopardizing it altogether.
In fact, Bovino lost the day he had long claimed as his victory: the Battle of MacArthur Park.
That’s when he convinced the Trump administration to send in a dubious National Guard with its own people to cordon off the historic L.A. green space, ridiculously named Operation Excalibur. Armored vehicles are parked on Wilshire Boulevard. A smiling Bovino hung out with the media. A cavalry unit, anchored in the center by an agent on a white horse, charged into a soccer field where, just minutes earlier, children had been attending day camp.
No one was arrested or detained that day. Instead, Bovino walked into a barrage of abuse and boo birds. This practice allowed Americans to see the folly of burning millions of taxpayer dollars just so someone could star in a TikTok reel. It also broke the spell Bovino had created over many critics – including myself – who feared he was actually an unstoppable punisher.
No, he was just spiky haired pendejo.
If Bovino were as smart as he thinks he is, he would have followed the long-term strategy of another long-time immigration enforcer. Trump border czar Tom Homan carried out a years-long roundup under the Obama administration, which Trump has yet to reach and with nowhere near as much public rancor. Homan, who loves the camera almost as much as Bovino, knew then and now that an explosive issue like deportation must be approached quietly if it was to be done successfully.
Instead, not only does he have to clean up Bovino’s mess, there is now a real chance that Republicans will lose the midterms because of Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 but are now angry at his administration. This is why Trump is also now asking Republicans to tone down their anti-immigrant rhetoric.
GraciousBovino!
You thought you’d go down in American history as a homegrown Patton, a frontiersman Sherman. Instead, your past week coincided with the publication of a New York Times profile of you attacking enemies while sipping coffee at a burger bar in El Centro.
You called Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott “weak”, mocked Homan and said you could deport 100 million people — a fundamentally racist number even considering the Center for Immigration Studies, which has long insisted on reducing all types of immigration, There are an estimated record 15.4 million illegal immigrants Was in this country at the beginning of Trump’s second term.
Instead, you’re headed to the Tar Heel State to spend your days hunting coyotes.
You told The New York Times, “Maybe I’ll get some dogs and we’ll work hard.” “I will take it into my own hands.”
Which reminds me of another unfortunate cartoon character who thought of himself as a genius but who kept screwing things up in his constant search for his quarry: Wile E. Coyote.
