Commentary: Goodbye, Border Patrol bogeyman Gregory Bovino, and good riddance

How would you feel about getting a dream gig only to see it end in disgrace because of you, yourself?

That is what Gregory Bovino began to think about for the rest of his life. Friday is a Border Patrol agent’s last day on the job after 30 years — and he’s not leaving because he wants to.

Last year, the term “hillbilly” was Trump’s metaphor for immigration. Helicopter attacks on apartment buildings, tear gas thrown into large crowds, defying court orders, great images: There was no municipality too big, no strategy too crazy, no quote that Bovino could take while managing immigration areas like the Normandy coast.

The North Carolina native’s brutal mobile soon earned him a promotion from El Centro field commander to overall Border Patrol commander, a new position created for him. He accepted the role of migra a bogeyman like the middle boy scraping the bowl of Warheads, always promising more expulsions, mayhem, and more. More.

That’s not the case anymore.

In January, Border Patrol agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti during a protest just weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer did the same to Renée Good, a mother of three. Bovino threw napalm on the matter by saying Pretti wanted to “kill law enforcement” without providing evidence. The incidents have so angered the public about immigration agents that a Public Religion Research Institute poll released this week showed only 35% of Americans surveyed approved of Trump’s handling of immigration, compared to 48% last year.

Bovino was sent back to El Centro and lost his social media rights, where he had been posting videos revealing his personality for a long time. Even Trump opened his own migra man, telling Fox News that Bovino was “some kind of guy … and in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good.” [in Minneapolis].”

I should have warned Bovino the first time we met that failure was his destiny.

Setting: Fox 11 studios in Los Angeles in July. Bovino and I were going to do separate interviews with former station host Elex Michaelson. Bovino was in the middle of his attack in Los Angeles, where he saw immigrants besiege MacArthur Park, attack Home Depots and car washes and appear outside the Japanese American National Museum while politicians inside criticized Trump.

Dressed in a full Border Patrol uniform complete with a walkie-talkie slung over his shoulder, the boy billed himself as a modern-day Charles Martel defending his homeland from invading Christians. A nasal Bovino ranted to Michaelson about how “Ma and Pa America” ​​deserved a country without undocumented immigrants and vowed to stay in Los Angeles “until the operation is over.”

After his interview, Bovino and three Border Patrol agents went into the green room to pick up some homemade cookies while I sat on the couch. He looked me in the eye as he bent down to sign Michaelson’s guest book, as if he expected me not only to recognize him but to say something.

It was like staring at an impersonator who was one part Lt. Col. Kilgore from “Apocalypse Now” and the two-parter Henry Hawk, a short, bright Looney Tunes character who was always trying to capture the biggest Foghorn Leghorn. He really thought that his fiery attack on LA would win over the city and convince other communities not to fight back if Bovino who calls himself “The Green Machine” came into town.

The opposite happens.

People who never bothered with politics – even those who voted for Trump or at least agreed to deport immigrants with criminal convictions – stood up and refused. Everywhere went to the fore – social media, streets, courthouses – and activists across Southern California began sharing notes with each other and communities across the country to prepare. these migrations. Bovino reacted to all the outrage instead of focusing on his job, not realizing that his recklessness was eroding public support for his cause and completely intimidating.

Indeed, Bovino lost a day he has long called a victory: the Battle of MacArthur Park.

That’s when he convinced the Trump administration to send in a redoubtable National Guard and his men to surround the historic LA area in a sordid operation called Operation Excalibur. Armored vehicles parked on Wilshire Boulevard. A smiling Bovino strolls with the media. A unit of wannabe cavalry, anchored in the center by an agent on a white horse, swept across the football field where the kids had gone to day camp a few minutes ago.

No one was arrested or detained that day. Instead, Bovino let loose with a chorus of swear words and boo birds. This project allowed Americans to see the folly of burning millions of taxpayer dollars just so someone could play a TikTok reel. It also broke the spell Bovino had cast on many critics – myself included – who feared he was indeed an unstoppable Pastor.

No, he had spiky hair pendejo.

If Bovino were as smart as he thinks he is, he would follow the long-term strategy of another long-term immigration watchdog. Trump’s border kingpin Tom Homan has made the rounds every year under the Obama administration in numbers that Trump has yet to reach and is nowhere close to in the public eye. Homan, who loves the camera almost as much as Bovino, knew then that a hot-button issue like evictions had to be talked about quietly if it was to be done successfully.

Instead, not only is he cleaning up Bovino’s mess, now there is a real chance that Republicans will lose midterm votes to Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 but are now angry at his administration. That’s why Trump is now telling Republicans to tone down their anti-immigrant rhetoric, figures.

GraciasBeautiful!

You thought he would go down in US history as the Patton of the home, the Sherman of the frontier. Instead, your last week coincided with the publication of a New York Times profile of you insulting enemies while downing coffee at a bar in El Centro.

He called the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott “weak-kneed,” and mocked Homan, who said he could deport 100 million people – a number that is highly racist considering that even the Center for Immigration Studies, which has long called for a reduction in immigration of all kinds, is estimated to be a record 15.4 million illegal immigrants who first appeared in Trump’s country for the second time.

Instead, you’re headed to the Tar Heel State to spend your days hunting… coyotes.

“Maybe I’ll get the dogs and we’ll go hard,” he told the New York Times. “I will take it into my own hands.”

Which reminds me of another hapless cartoon character who thought he was smart but kept screwing things up in pursuit of his never-ending quarry: Wile E. Coyote.