Meet the Fascists: First Up, Greg Bovino

A sector chief of the CPB just got hauled in before a federal judge in Chicago to answer for his actions.

Photo: Ashlee Rezin, Chicago Sun-Times

We’ve reached a key point in Season Two of The Man in the Gold Ballroom. This is where viewers are introduced to some new characters, as the fascist MAGA hellscape expands into our local neighborhoods. Residents of Los Angeles and Chicago already know this guy, Greg Bovino. It’s time we all did.

Bovino is a senior Customs Border Protection official. He fancies himself some kind of an obergruppenführer under High Chancellor Trump. This was what he wore to a CNN interview. No, really, it was.

In the above image, Bovino appears quite imposing. But that may be overcompensating.

Image courtesy of Colin Boyle, Block Club Chicago

Bovino may love to play Nazi dress up, but yesterday we were treated to Bovino getting dressed down by a federal judge.

Federal courts don’t allow cameras, so we’ll have to settle for summaries from the legal experts in attendance. But I promise, they’re worth it.

Before we cheer what Judge Sara Ellis did to take this little man down yet another peg, let’s get the backstory on why there was a hearing in the first place.

A judge’s TRO ignored

It’s a common response. Any time I write that a judge has issued a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction against the government, many respond, “It doesn’t matter, they’ll just ignore it.”

While I understand the frustration and the assumptions behind this reaction, the fact is that the vast majority of judicial orders are obeyed, and there are consequences when they are not. The judge’s hearing yesterday, where she hauled Bovino in for questioning, is a good example.

Chicago media organizations, protestors and local clergy had filed a lawsuit accusing federal agents of a “pattern of extreme brutality.” You’re probably familiar with images and videos of federal agents firing pepper balls and tear gas at peaceful protestors outside the Broadview ICE detention facility, even hitting a priest in the face when he was just standing there.

In response to the lawsuit, Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order on October 9. Reporting on the order at the time, CBS News noted,

The restraining order temporarily prohibits federal agents from arresting, threatening to arrest or using physical force against journalists unless there is probable cause to believe the individual has committed a crime. It also prohibits them from issuing crowd dispersal orders, without exigent circumstances, requiring people to leave a public place where they otherwise have a lawful right to be.

It also prohibits them from using various types of riot control weapons, including tear gas and other kinds of noxious gas, as well as various kinds of “less-lethal” weapons and ammunition.

But the abuses and the tear gas continued. In one particular incident that gained national attention, federal agents deployed tear gas in a residential neighborhood where children were preparing for a Halloween parade.

The plaintiffs brought the violations to the judge’s attention, and she called a hearing demanding that the official in charge appear before her.

And that was why Bovino was there yesterday in a Chicago federal courtroom.

A litany of abuses and defiances of her order

The fact that Bovino had to come into court to answer for his orders and his actions understandably drew media and protestors, who shouted “Lock him up!” as he strode by them, still dressed in his fatigues. Here’s a clip from that moment. (Warning: strong language.)

Note: Xcancel links mirror Twitter without sending any traffic to it. Issues? Click the settings gear on the upper right of the Xcancel page and select “proxy video streaming through the server.” Then click “save preferences” at the bottom. Still no? Copy the link into a URL and remove the word “cancel” after the letter X in the URL and it will take you to the original video.

During the hearing Judge Ellis laid into Bovino, saying the kids’ sense of safety after that tear gas deployment was shattered. She grilled him on his own use of tear gas after a video showed him casually tossing a canister into a group of angry residents.

Far from his normal belligerent persona on social media and in interviews, and in stark contrast to how Trump officials have acted while under questioning from Congress, Bovino on the stand and under oath was contrite and respectful. Shia Kapos from Politico, who was in the courtroom, reported on the exchange:

• In discussing need for identification to be displayed clearly by agents, Bovino responds, “Yes, ma’am.”

• Next, the judge urges Bovino to make sure agents wear cameras. “The cameras are your friend,” said the judge. Asked if he wears one, Bovino says he has not received body-worn camera or training. She says “how about by Friday” you get one.

• Judge Ellis pulls out a file of “violations over the last week or so” including a woman who says two agents were on top of her, one with his knee on her back “and no visible identification” and another instance when a chemical spray was deployed, “and there was no warning.”

• Bovino responds to the judge, saying, “I believe each situation is dependent on the situation. I would want to learn more before I say anything one way or another.... I don’t know all the facts.”

• Judge now discusses someone being put in a chokehold, which she believes isn’t allowed. And Bovino counters, “those techniques can be deployed. It depends on the situation.” Judge pulls out the rules that say otherwise.

• Judge presents a hypothetical on when a situation would rise to a level of “chokehold” force, and again, Bovino says it’s situational.

• Now the judge is zeroing in on the case of kids in Halloween costumes celebrating Halloween in their Old Irving Park neighborhood. “I can only imagine how terrified they were,” the judge says. “Their sense of safety was shattered... it should have been a really happy day.”

• Judge is scanning through complaints: tear gas thrown, another agent without identification. Regarding protesters or others yelling at agents, “they don’t have to like what you’re doing. And that’s OK. ...they can’t get tear-gassed.”

• Bovino responds: “I understand what you’re saying. I think we’re on the same page that we will abide by the TRO.”

After reviewing a host of alleged violations of her order, Judge Ellis ordered Bovino’s agents to display visible ID, wear body cameras and give two warnings before deploying tear gas.

While Bovino assured her that he and his forces would comply, Judge Ellis wasn’t satisfied. She insisted Bovino report in person to her at the end of every work day. Federal judges are now quite wise to efforts by defendants to get around court orders and regularly set out compliance terms in their orders.

Bovino had no questions and left the courtroom. Once outside, however, his braggadocio returned. Bovino used military-like hand gestures to order his forces to depart while protestors jeered and cursed him. Here is that moment.

A history of abuses and fascist footsie

The chaos caused by Bovino’s orders in Chicago is not an isolated case. In fact, this was hardly the first time Bovino crossed the line.

In July, The Atlantic published a damning profile of Bovino following his stint as chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector of Customs and Border Protection, which led the crackdown on undocumented immigrants inside Los Angeles. It reviewed several of his questionable actions, and I’ll highlight just a few here.

According to the reporting, Bovino has a long history of going after non-criminal undocumented persons while making arrests. In early 2021, Bovino sent agents into Kern County for arrests at gas stations and highway stops. Of the 78 people arrested, only one had a criminal conviction.

Internally, CBP officials raised concerns that Bovino’s love of spectacle resulted in significant work to clean up his missteps, such as posting sensitive law enforcement information on social media.

Bovino has also been the subject of a federal lawsuit alleging racist hiring practices. In 2022, when Bovino became sector chief in New Orleans, he cancelled a job listing and used a transfer to hire a close white friend while two Black finalists were passed over. An email from the friend compared Bovino to a Confederate general with the New Orleans office filled with Black soldiers from the Union.

More recently, Bovino had been calling the shots over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles. While ICE gets much of the public heat, it’s actually the CBP under Bovino that has been donning camouflage, wearing masks, and carrying military gear while targeting car washes and Home Depot parking lots. They employ tactics in urban areas that they were trained to use while hunting down migrant runners in the desert, where there are no cameras.

Many remember the display of heavily armed, horse-mounted forces moving through MacArthur Park and terrorizing kids and migrant families in Los Angeles this summer. Once again, that was Bovino.

After the Los Angeles protests calmed down, DHS apparently sent Bovino to Chicago where he has been causing trouble ever since.

Propaganda videos

Bovino has popularized the use of “PR videos” within DHS that utilize highly stylized, militant and Christian nationalist imagery to recruit new agents and demonize immigrant communities. One video posted in September of 2020, per reporting by the Washington Post,

shows a Spanish-speaking attacker stabbing and killing a man in a dark alley after escaping from U.S. agents, a clip apparently created to dramatize President Trump’s depiction of migrants as fearsome criminals.

It caused such an uproar that CBP took it down.

This year, Bovino released another video set to “Power” by Nazi supporter Ye (aka Kanye West). It depicts CBP agents chasing people through a Home Depot parking lot while Bovino, thumbs locked in his belt and tear gas canisters dangling from his vest, declares, “There is no such thing as a sanctuary state.”

“This is how and why we secure the homeland,” Bovino asserts. “For Ma and Pa America: We’ve got your backs.”

Here is the full video:

The use of such musicalized propaganda videos has inspired ever more insane ones. This summer, a CBP video titled “Bible Verse” used apocalyptic themes to dramatize the conflict with protesters in Portland, Oregon. As The Atlantic described it,

The video, “Bible Verse,” opens with a monologue by the actor Shia LaBeouf, lifted from the World War II movie Fury, in which a soldier prepares his comrades to fight the Nazis with a stirring passage from the Book of Isaiah about answering the call of God. The song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” plays to stylized, washed-out footage of Border Patrol tactical agents zooming around in helicopters and speedboats.

The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club sent a cease-and-desist warning to DHS over its use of its music, causing the video to be taken down. “It’s obvious that you don’t respect Copyright Law and Artist Rights any more than you respect Habeas Corpus and Due Process rights, not to mention the separation of Church and State per the US Constitution,” the band wrote, adding: “Oh, and go fuck yourselves.”

I happened to capture the video before it was taken down. Here it is for context, bizarre and anti-factual as it is:

This fall, Bovino participated in the assault upon a Chicago apartment complex where residents, including U.S. citizens and children, were separated by race, ziptied and detained for hours. Said Gov. Pritzker of Illinois, directly about Greg Bovino,

[he] goes around thinking he’s a social media influencer, filming himself saying provocative things. They brought cameras around the South Shore building when they attacked that building. There were 130 people who live in that building, and only a couple few were being targeted as gang members. And yet, they arrested, detained the entire building, including children and the elderly. So Gregory Bovino lies consistently, as does Kristi Noem, the president, the vice president of the United States. It’s a tidal wave of lies.

Bovino will be back… but so will consequences

I would be surprised if Bovino isn’t soon back before Judge Ellis to explain himself and why aspects of her order were once again not followed. Bovino may believe that blatant violations of the order he just promised to follow will please his bosses, Kristi Noem and Donald Trump. But it also puts him in legal jeopardy.

Stephen Miller has been busy spouting lies that immigration officials have “federal immunity” under the Supremacy Clause and that anyone, including state actors, who tries to stop them “is committing a felony.” Bovino may believe him, to his detriment. The fact is, while federal law does offer some protections for federal officials against civil liability, it does not reach as far as Miller claims.

As Prof. Steve Vladeck noted recently, “[M]odern courts will generally apply Supremacy Clause immunity only when both of two conditions are satisfied: When (1) the federal officer was performing an act that he was authorized to do by federal law; and (2) in performing the authorized act, the federal officer did no more than what was necessary and proper.

Vladeck explained what this means in practice: “[I]t’s not enough that the federal officer was carrying out their duties; their conduct must also have had some significant connection to their ability to do that which federal law authorizes.”

Under this standard, Bovino’s actions, should they continue, won’t be protected by federal immunity. And Bovino may be too far into his own fascist cosplay to abide by Judge Ellis’s order and rein in his actions. If he violates its provisions, as expected, then there’s a clear case not only for contempt proceedings before Judge Ellis, but for state officials to hit him with criminal assault charges for which there is no federal immunity.

And should state officials charge and convict him successfully for violating state laws, there wouldn’t be any way for Trump to pardon him.

That trap is now effectively set. Let’s see if Bovino walks into it.