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gregory bovino
‘We Are Not Letting Up’: Advocates Say Much More Work to Do as Bovino Exits Minnesota
The ACLU said it plans to keep up the pressure and won’t stop “until ICE and CBP stop terrorizing our community.”
Jan 27, 2026
Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino has reportedly been pushed out of his role leading President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign amid a torrent of backlash against immigration agents' lawless behavior in Minnesota in recent weeks, particularly the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis this month.
The Atlantic, which was the first to report Bovino's departure, describes it as one of the first times that a White House prone to quadrupling down on even its most outrageous excesses has buckled in the face of public outrage, with Trump reportedly mulling "a tactical shift in the administration’s mass deportation campaign."
This has not only led to Bovino—who baselessly claimed Pretti intended to "massacre law enforcement"—being demoted and sent to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire. Some of the administration's other, more aggressive anti-immigrant zealots, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her de facto chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski, are also reportedly on the hot seat.
"To be clear, this is a victory, which was won by ordinary people putting their lives on the line in the streets of Minneapolis while almost all their elected leaders kept quiet or made only muted criticism," said Jeet Heer, a writer for the Nation.
But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been at the forefront of legal resistance to the Trump administration's attacks on civil rights, warned on Monday evening that while ousting the face of the operation represented "progress," it must not breed complacency.
A spokesperson for the group noted in a video posted to social media that Bovino's demotion came shortly after the announcement that some Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents were being withdrawn from Minneapolis "as a result of public pushback," in response to its and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) tactics.
"These are clear signals that the Trump administration is feeling our pressure," they said. "This is progress, but we are not letting up until ICE and CBP stop terrorizing our community."
"Part of how we achieve this is by telling our senators to vote no this week on a bill that would continue funding ICE without doing anything to keep our community safe," they continued.
Ezra Levin, the co-director of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, said that the exit of Bovino shows that "the people of Minnesota won and the regime is losing."
However, he said that while "we are all happy to say good riddance to Greg Bovino... our work is still not over."
"This was never about one individual," Levin said. "It is about a system of terror driven by Donald Trump and his regime. The people on the streets are doing their part, but it is up to Democrats to hold the line and follow through. The DHS funding bill cannot pass in its current form, and there must be real constraints and accountability for DHS moving forward."
After Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was gunned down this past weekend by a band of federal agents—whose identities the Trump administration has still refused to release to the public and has allowed to remain on duty—Democratic lawmakers have largely stated their intention to block a bill that would fund the government after a January 30 deadline.
That bill—which narrowly passed the House last week with seven Democrats in support after party leadership refused to whip votes against the measure—provides another $64.4 billion to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including another $10 billion for ICE. This is on top of the $170 billion in new DHS funding approved last summer when Congress passed Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Zeteo reports that as of Monday, 44 Democrats have stated their intention to vote against the bill. With seven Democrats needed to vote for the legislation in addition to all 53 Republicans, this is enough for it to be blocked. According to the report:
Senate Democrats appear to have coalesced around several demands for cleaning up ICE. While the exact language isn’t final, Democrats are prepared to demand the following, according to the [American] Prospect: an independent, federal-state investigation of the murders by DHS in Minnesota and agents’ tactics; a ban on ICE agents wearing face masks; a requirement that ICE agents wear body cameras; an end to arrest quotas and agents’ roving patrols, where they racially profile people; and a prohibition on agents illegally and unconstitutionally entering people’s homes based on “administrative warrants” that haven’t been signed by an actual judge.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), America's largest federal workers union, of which Pretti was a member, said that other Trump administration officials who smeared his name in order to defend his killing must also face accountability.
“In the immediate aftermath of Alex’s killing, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem betrayed the public trust by slandering the good name of our union brother and calling him a 'domestic terrorist,'" said AFGE national president Everett Kelley. "Alex Pretti was a patriotic ICU nurse at a [Department of Veterans Affairs] hospital who devoted his life to serving America’s veterans. That claim was reckless, defamatory, and unsupported by the facts. Noem was preceded in this false statement by Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff, who is also the architect of the chaotic and failed immigration policy in Minnesota."
"Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately," Kelley continued. "If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them."
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Nearly 3 Days After Killing of Alex Pretti, Feds Have Still Not Released Name of Shooters
"We have an unaccountable secret police force that answers only to Trump," said one White House reporter.
Jan 26, 2026
It has been more than 55 hours since an immigration officer's fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday, and still the US government has refused to provide the public with answers about the identity of the agent, or agents, who shot him.
Just as in the case of Renee Good, who was shot by an agent earlier this month, the Trump administration has circled the wagons around the narrative that Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was a "terrorist" planning to “massacre law enforcement” a claim they have provided no evidence for aside from the fact that he was carrying a handgun, which local police have said he owned legally.
Video of Pretti's killing, recorded from multiple angles, directly contradicts the claims of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who alleged that Pretti was "brandishing a weapon" and that agents fired "defensive shots" after Pretti "violently resisted" arrest.
The Department of Homeland Security has not released any identifying information about the people who shot Pretti. Video evidence appears to show two agents firing at least ten shots at Pretti as he lay on the ground. According to an analysis of the shooting by ABC News, "one of the agents is seen in multiple verified videos emerging from the scrum with a handgun that appears to match the weapon federal officials say Pretti was carrying."
Pretti had been shoved to the ground after attempting to film officers with a cellphone. Video shows him being shoved and later pepper-sprayed by officers, even after holding up his hands in an apparent attempt to signal that he was not a threat.
In what was described as a stunning break from the usual protocol for a law enforcement-involved shooting, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino said during a press conference on Sunday that all of the agents involved are "still working," though they had been moved out of Minneapolis. Bovino himself is reportedly expected to leave Minneapolis soon, along with other top agents.
David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, described the fact that the agents were still on duty one day after a shooting as "unreal."
"Bovino spirited the murderer out of Minnesota's jurisdiction, yet they are still 'working,'" he said. "I've never heard of that in any real police department. Never heard of that in the federal government either."
He added that "cops shot at people in seven different jurisdictions this year," and that, "in every case, the jurisdiction put the officers on admin leave as part of standard protocol."
During the same press conference, told reporters that the agents had been moved out of Minneapolis "for their safety." He then explained: "There's this thing called doxxing."
Legally speaking, the term "doxxing" refers to the public disclosure of private information like addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive information with the intent to harm the subject.
However in an effort to justify keeping the identities of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal officers a secret, including through the wearing of masks to hide their identities, the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress have adopted a much broader definition of the term that considers any attempt to identify an agent, even one involved in a shooting, as doxxing.
Last week, Noem harangued a CBS News anchor for even speaking the name of Jonathan Ross, the man who reporters identified as the shooter of Renee Good, live on the air, saying "we shouldn't have people continue to dox law enforcement."
She has previously pledged to prosecute those who reveal the identities of federal agents to the "fullest extent of the law," though so far no charges have been filed.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), publishing the name of a law enforcement officer is generally considered First Amendment-protected speech under Supreme Court rulings that protect the publishing of truthful information.
S.V. Date, a White House correspondent at HuffPost, said that the federal government's refusal to identify the agent who shot Pretti essentially "means we have an unaccountable secret police force that answers only to Trump."
"This person has still not been identified," he said, referring to the agent who shot Pretti while wearing a mask to obscure his identity. "In a real police force, that piece of information is released in the very first incident report."
Members of Congress have called for a transparent investigation into the shooting, including some Republicans who are otherwise supportive of ICE.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is not running for reelection in this year's cycle, called for a "thorough and impartial investigation" and said "any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins is doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump's legacy."
Of course, the Trump administration itself has already shut down an investigation into the shooting of Good, stating repeatedly that it would not pursue a probe into wrongdoing by Ross, while freezing out state-level investigators from information.
Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said that the Trump administration has ignored a court order that would allow state investigators to access evidence in Pretti's killing.
"Our state investigators had to get a warrant to have access to the evidence of the shooting of Alex Pretti," Smith said. "And even then, the federal agents refused to give them access to the evidence. So this looks very much like another cover-up."
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized what may have happened with the gun that appeared to be Pretti's removed from the scrum by one of the federal agents. The article has been updated to better describe those events.
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'Where Were You Born?' ICE Conducting Show-Me-Your-Papers Stops in Minnesota Neighborhoods
"I was scared. I was devastated," said a Somali-American citizen who was accosted by ICE as part of what the agent called a "citizen check." No such thing exists in American law.
Jan 13, 2026
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents deployed to Minnesota are pulling many nonwhite residents aside and asking them to prove their citizenship, according to several reports and multiple videos posted to social media this week amid the Trump administration's surge of immigration agents to Minneapolis.
There is no federal law requiring US citizens to carry proof of their citizenship, and immigration agents are barred from carrying out indiscriminate searches unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe that someone is in the country without authorization.
And yet, one video, posted on Sunday by a Somali resident of Minneapolis, a US citizen named Nimco Omar, shows a group of agents accosting her and asking her to show her identification as part of what they said was a "citizen check."
Omar said she was on a walk when masked agents who "looked like soldiers" approached her and began questioning her.
The video shows one of the agents asking Omar, "Do you have an ID on you, ma'am?"
She replied: "I don't need an ID to walk around in my city. This is my city."
"OK, do you have some ID, then, please?" the officer asked. "If not, we're going to put you in the vehicle, and we're going to ID you."
Omar responded: "I am a US citizen. I don't need to carry around an ID in my home. This is my home."
After being repeatedly asked, "Where were you born?" Omar replied simply, "Minneapolis is my home."
The agent then told her: "We're doing an immigration check. We're doing a citizen check."
Another agent then pulled out his cellphone and, without asking, appeared to snap a picture of Omar, likely to run through a facial recognition application that ICE has used to verify the status of people it detains—including citizens.
Omar continued to hold her ground, telling the agents: "I’m a US citizen. I don’t have to identify myself. I belong here—and it doesn’t matter where I was born.” After failing to get an answer, the agents then walked away.
"I was scared. I was devastated. I never imagined that something like this could happen to me in the United States," Omar wrote in a social media post documenting the encounter. "As a community member who grew up here, who built a life here, and who calls Minnesota home, I want to be clear: This is not acceptable. This is not something we should ever normalize. This is not what the United States of America is supposed to look like."
The scene was just the latest report of immigration agents conducting what Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said was "unlawful racial profiling by DHS agents" in a lawsuit against the agency filed Monday by the state of Minnesota. Illinois filed a similar but separate suit Monday.
"We're doing a citizen check."
Since last week, when ICE agent Jonathan Ross was filmed fatally shooting 37-year-old Renee Good in a Minneapolis neighborhood—which Vice President JD Vance said in a press conference occurred during "door-to-door" sweeps by ICE in search of undocumented migrants—several other similar cases have been documented in which immigration agents have approached nonwhite US citizens demanding they prove their citizenship.
In another case, on the same day of Good's shooting, a Somali Uber driver was pulled over outside the Minneapolis airport and asked to prove his citizenship. One of the agents told the driver he did not believe the driver's claim to be a citizen because "I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me," and asked the man where he was born repeatedly.
It mirrored another case from December in which another Somali man, a US citizen identified only as Mubashir, was tackled to the ground by immigration agents who refused to accept his government-issued Real ID as proof of citizenship.
Outcry over that case prompted Gregory Bovino, the commander at large of the US Border Patrol, who has taken part in several stops and raids as part of the Trump administration's operation in Minneapolis, to falsely claim that US citizens "must carry immigration documents" under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
About 83% of Somalis living in the US are citizens, according to census data. However, Minneapolis' large Somali population—which has an even higher rate of US citizenship—has been used as a justification by President Donald Trump to flood the city with immigration agents. In recent months, the president has referred to Somalis as “garbage” and called for them all to be deported from the country.
But Somalis have not been the only targets of arbitrary "citizenship" checks in recent days.
Another video, filmed on the day of Good's shooting, showed agents pinning a Hispanic Target employee, 17-year-old Jonathan Aguilar Garcia, to the ground, along with another employee, after asking him whether he was a US citizen. Even after shouting multiple times that he was a citizen and showing his government ID, Garcia was reportedly taken to an undisclosed location for hours with no notice given to his family about where he was or when he'd return.
In another case, detailed in the Minnesota lawsuit, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents "approached a team of four Minneapolis Public Works employees, working in Minneapolis and wearing city uniforms and badges. The agents asked the three nonwhite city employees for identification and questioned each of them about their citizenship and place of birth. The agents did not ask to see any identification or ask any questions of the fourth employee, who was white."
Four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who were homeless and living under a bridge, were also reportedly detained last week and have still not yet been located. The tribe's president has directed members to declare their tribal affiliation when encountering immigration officers, which makes them US citizens and therefore not subject to immigration enforcement.
"DHS said they were 'highly targeted' and go after 'the worst of the worst,'" said the Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security in a post on social media responding to agents' questioning of Omar. "In reality, DHS is indiscriminately profiling Black and brown American citizens.
They urged readers: "Protect yourself and your neighbors and film everything."
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