President Donald Trump’s hardline lead Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino is back in Chicago—where he’s accused of immediately setting out to taunt the city’s migrant community.
On Tuesday morning, Bovino led a convoy of around 200 of his “Green Machine” immigration agents through Southwest Chicago before rolling into the fenced federal facility in Broadview around 1 p.m.
In what was reportedly the most visible burst of federal immigration enforcement since Bovino, 55, left Illinois last month, witnesses described chaotic driving and confrontations as the caravan moved, horns blaring amid shrill whistles from residents warning of its presence.
“The agents were racing past and creating chaos,” Matt DeMateo, CEO of New Community Church, told Block Club Chicago, describing disruptions near a church holiday food drive. Another resident, Ivan Gonzalez, was quoted by the outlet as saying that agents were “terrorizing this neighborhood.”
Southwest Side rapid response coordinator Anyh Huamani told Block Club: “We witnessed how agents were driving their cars without license plates, the wrong way on the one-way streets, running red lights and just behaving recklessly.”
En route to Broadview, at around 10 a.m., Bovino and a group of agents approached Enlace Chicago—an immigrant rights center in Little Village—and waved at those inside, according to the organization’s co-director Marcela Rodriguez, in what she told the outlet was a “clear intimidation tactic.”
Rodriguez said two people were then detained nearby, including a man “frantically” trying to get back into his home. Huamani said about 15 people were arrested throughout the day, including a tamale vendor and day laborers outside a Home Depot near West 47th Street and South Western Avenue.
From a Home Depot parking lot in Cicero, Bovino told Block Club it was “unknown at this time” how long he would stay and claimed “several hundred” agents had come with him. “It’s going to be a merry Christmas in Chicago,” he said. “We’re going to enforce immigration law, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Tuesday’s Home Depot detentions contradict reports that the Trump administration had quietly changed tactics to target migrants with criminal records, rather than carrying out random sweeps of laborers.
Bovino’s return comes after his first Chicago stint helped trigger a string of court fights over the tactics of his Border Patrol contingent during “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in September.
U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis—an Obama appointee—rebuked Bovino’s testimony about the justification for his and his unit’s deployment of tear gas and use of force, with Ellis accusing him of repeatedly lying to the court.
A federal appeals court later threw out Ellis’ order requiring Bovino to report daily to her, while leaving in place broader limits and documentation requirements tied to the case.
After leaving Chicago in November, Bovino moved his team to North Carolina for “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in the days before Thanksgiving—an assignment that drew questions over why the mission had landed near the area where his family has deep roots and lasted only for a week.
He then headed to Louisiana on Dec. 1, where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—under which Border Patrol operates—had planned to deploy about 250 agents for a two-month “Swamp Sweep” tied to the administration’s deportation targets.
The enforcement push—publicly branded “Operation Catahoula Crunch”—has drawn protests and political blowback in the metro area, including demands from local leaders for more transparency.
With Bovino’s “Green Machine” now back in Chicago, community groups say they are using the same playbook.
“We’re not afraid. Our rapid response team will continue to show up for our communities because only we keep each other safe,” Huamani said, calling the federal agents “the real danger in our communities.”
A DHS spokesperson told the Beast that, on Tuesday, agents arrested 35 “illegal aliens who have all violated the immigration laws of the nation,” with criminal histories that include “aggravated assault, domestic violence, battery, aggravated assault with weapon, burglary, larceny, DUI with child passenger, multiple DUIs, leaving scene of accident with death, and serial traffic offenses.”
They added that Border Patrol had never been “leaving” the city to begin with, where it said operations were ongoing to achieve “what Chicago’s sanctuary politicians have refused to do for decades: decrease crime and remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who put the American people in danger.”
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