Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino has been the public face of the Trump administration’s immigration operations, which meant it was Bovino who held a press conference in Minnesota on Saturday after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti.
It did not go well: The controversial Customs and Border Protection official, among other things, told the public that the victim intended to “massacre law enforcement,” an outlandish and unbelievable claim for which there was, and is, no evidence.
Bovino’s career path took a sudden change soon after. MS NOW reported:
Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino will no longer oversee immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, a senior Trump administration official told MS NOW, as the White House scrambles to deal with the outrage over Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis. […]
There will also be a reduction of Department of Homeland Security officers in Minnesota, two officials briefed on the matter told MS NOW on condition of anonymity to discuss law enforcement deployment details.
For a White House that likes to pretend that it never backs down under pressure, it’s rather obvious that Donald Trump and his team agreed to shake up its operation under intense, bipartisan pressure, even from some of the president’s like-minded allies.
For Bovino, whose recent record has included one scandalous development after another, it’s an embarrassing setback, especially as he’s replaced in Minnesota by White House border czar Tom Homan, who’ll oversee immigration operations in the state.
Trump presented Homan as some kind of moderating force, which is preposterous given Homan’s controversial background, political antics, absurd conspiracy theories and bribery allegations.
But of particular interest was a brief aside the president made when announcing the lineup change: Trump said Homan “will report directly to me.”
If that’s true, it’s a demeaning development for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for one unavoidable reason: These enforcement policies were supposed to fall under her purview, and now her powers have been weakened in the aftermath of repeated failures.
A Politico report noted the larger context, after emphasizing that the DHS secretary appears to have been “sidelined”:
For Noem, it’s nothing short of a public humiliation; pushed aside from her department’s highest-profile operation following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti — and following her ill-judged response. Homan ‘will report directly to me,’ Trump announced on Truth Social, and the message could hardly have been clearer.
If, sometime soon, Trump publishes an item to his social media platform announcing that he has decided to nominate Noem to serve as an ambassador to some faraway land, no one should be too surprised.
