CHICAGO (Reuters) -Gregory Bovino, a U.S. Customs and Border Control chief who played a prominent role in a deportation crackdown in Los Angeles, said his team has arrived in Chicago on Tuesday and has made arrests.
Bovino’s comments on X signaled a potential escalation of efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration targeting undocumented immigrants in the third-largest U.S. city, while drawing criticism from local officials who said his actions were more for show than for improving safety.
In an online video showing scenes of Chicago, set to music, Bovino said he would continue his mission from Los Angeles by arresting “criminal illegal aliens.”
“We are already going hard this morning!!! Many arrests,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said last week it was launching an operation in Chicago and other parts of Illinois to target criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status. The department said the operation was necessary because of city and state “sanctuary” laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The office of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker criticized Bovino’s actions.
“As a federal law enforcement operation gets underway, they don’t pick up the phone to call the Governor but do have the time to create a TikTok video showing off beautiful Chicago scenery,” Pritzker spokesman Matt Hill said on X on Tuesday.
“He’s not a serious individual but a wannabe social media star.”
Pritzker said last week that Bovino was in charge of efforts in Illinois.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she was also in Chicago on Tuesday.
“Just this morning, DHS took violent offenders off the streets with arrests for assault, DUI, and felony stalking,” Noem said on X.
Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official who became an at-large commander under the Trump administration, played a lead role in Trump’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles.
That campaign, which included canvassing neighborhoods and Home Depot parking lots for possible immigration offenders, triggered a legal challenge over racial profiling and led a federal judge to block the aggressive patrols in July. The Supreme Court earlier this month lifted the lower court’s injunction, allowing the tactics to resume.
Bovino previously served as Border Patrol’s chief patrol agent in California’s El Centro Sector along the border with Mexico, where he became known for highly produced social media videos promoting their work in the relatively remote area.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
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