Before two protesters were shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in just over two weeks, President Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns were defined by a consistent image: Officers anonymized by balaclavas and gaiters menacing people in workplace raids and on the streets of U.S. cities far from the border. But in Minnesota, one man has become emblematic of the administration’s aim to spread chaos and terror as part of its deportation strategy, his face unmasked in the cold: Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino.

Bovino worked hard to achieve this level of visibility. He also seemed to relish it, showing up for patrol in a long green overcoat that has reasonably been described as “Nazi cosplay” and taunting protesters online and on-camera. As the backlash grew over the fatal, point-blank shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers, Bovino’s act became too toxic even for many Republicans. His peacocking became the butt of a national joke as more and more Americans found his Pynchonian bad-guy act ridiculous.

Now, he is reportedly departing Minneapolis: CNN said that his access to government social-media accounts was suspended, and the Atlantic wrote that Bovino has been demoted to his former Border Patrol post in California and is expected to retire early.

Like many fast-rising officials within the administration, Bovino made a point of appearing on-camera as much as possible. Since the beginning of the second Trump term, he had been at the front of Homeland Security deployments in New Orleans, Charlotte, Sacramento, Los Angeles — where he made a hype video for masked agents set to Kendrick Lamar — and Chicago, where a federal judge determined he was “outright lying” about federal officers’ use of force. In 2020, when the Border Patrol launched a PR organ called StratComm to recruit new trainees and promote its rescue missions as saving migrants in distress, Bovino reportedly used the team to create a........

© Daily Intelligencer