Border Patrol’s Bovino seen as role model for ICE following leadership purge
The Trump administration has begun to purge Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in offices in five major U.S. cities and fill some of those top posts with senior Border Patrol agents who will take over interior immigration enforcement in those regions, according to five sources familiar with the plans.
ICE leaders in Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego were relieved of their jobs and moved to other posts within the federal agency last Friday, the Washington Examiner has learned.
Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security quietly started overhauling how it carries out its mass deportation operation in hopes of netting more arrests and ratcheting up its flashy, high-profile deportation campaign. The five cities are believed to be the first of more to come across ICE’s 24 field offices nationwide, according to three officials.
One official with firsthand knowledge of the plans, who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity, said the plan goes far beyond the five cities.
“It’s a lot more,” the official said.
A total of five sources said the five field office directors had been relieved of their duties and sent to other parts of the country to work. The DHS had plotted to fire all five field office directors but relented amid pushback from acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who pleaded that they not be terminated.
The decision to replace top federal employees from one agency with employees from an entirely different agency is unprecedented.
The DHS had initially dispatched Gregory Bovino, who oversees the Border Patrol’s El Centro, California, region, to help with immigration arrests in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland since the start of summer.
Bovino has become the face of the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime for his aggressive style, leading Border Patrol agents in a parade down the streets of Chicago’s business district and standing face to face with fiery rioters and protesters. He has also brought in Border Patrol agents to supplement ICE efforts.
Now, the second official explained, Bovino is not viewed as the exception to the norm, but the new standard for what is to come at ICE. [Continue reading…]