Bovino calls Minnesota immigration drawdown a ‘surrender’

Former US Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino has called the Trump administration’s decision to scale back its Minnesota immigration operation a “surrender”. Speaking to the BBC months after losing command of the operation, he said he regretted “not going harder in Minnesota and arresting even more illegal aliens”.

The withdrawal followed the fatal shootings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis in January. President Donald Trump put his border adviser Tom Homan in charge after Pretti’s death, replacing Bovino. Asked why he had been removed, Bovino told the BBC: “You’d have to ask the administration. I still haven’t gotten the final word on that.”

The scale of the subsequent drawdown matters to Bovino’s description of it. On 4 February, Homan announced that 700 federal personnel would leave Minnesota immediately. MPR News estimated that about 3,000 had been deployed before that announcement; Homan put the remaining number at around 2,000. He called the change “smarter enforcement, not less enforcement” and said people in the country unlawfully would still be subject to immigration action. On 12 February, he announced that the *surge* would end and that the drawdown would continue the following week. Those announcements do not establish how many personnel ultimately left, or show that immigration enforcement stopped.

Bovino also defended agents’ handling of the shootings. He maintained to the BBC that Good and Pretti had intended to harm officers, rejecting a challenge about video evidence. In its analysis of footage of Good’s shooting, the Associated Press described her car turning to the right as an officer fired, but said it was unclear whether the vehicle made contact with him. The footage does not establish her intention; that AP analysis does not address Pretti’s actions.

Asked about civil litigation brought by Good’s family, Bovino said he was “not responding” and added that “people do lawsuits all the time”. Two complaints filed in federal court on 1 October seek damages from the United States and from individuals including Bovino and Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot Good. The claims include wrongful death and an allegation of conspiracy to deprive people of civil rights. They are allegations, not findings against the defendants. A White House spokeswoman previously called the lawsuits “baseless”; the family’s lawyers told the BBC they looked forward to taking Bovino’s deposition.