Donald Trump’s most prominent Border Patrol commander is heaping praise on an ICE agent who shot dead an unarmed mother.
Gregory Bovino used an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News to discuss the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Nicole Good.
Good was shot in the head by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, 43, as she attempted to drive away from an immigration protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The fatal shooting has sparked worldwide outrage, even as the Trump administration has insisted the killing was justified.
Suggesting that the prior conduct of Good, 37, had led to her death, Bovino, 55, said: “Did that individual have the intent [to injure Ross]? Look at those minutes leading up to the shooting, and we will see what I would consider some pretty important intent.
“Did that individual have the opportunity? Yes. Did that individual take that opportunity? Yes. A 4,000-pound missile is not something anyone wants to face, especially in a split second decision making process in [an] already inhospitable environment.”
Bovino added, “Hats off to that ICE agent. I’m glad he made it out alive. I’m glad he’s with his family.”
His comments immediately sparked fury on social media. Author Don Winslow posted on X: “Listen very carefully to this. This is who they are and this is the world they want.”
Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic & Policy Research, wrote: “I remember when Joe Biden was president, and we didn’t have high-level government officials bragging about shooting civilians.”
Influential podcaster and pundit Keith Olbermann added: “Littlest Nazi, Bovine, tries to become a human, fails.”
Bovino has previously been roasted for posing in a long trenchcoat that drew SS comparisons after it was featured in a DHS promotional video.
Bovino’s comments echo the Trump administration’s defense of Ross as acting in self-defense, with top officials claiming Good “weaponized” her vehicle—despite video that has cast doubt on the notion she posed an imminent threat.
In the immediate aftermath, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem branded Good a “domestic terrorist.” Trump said Good had “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense,” a claim repeated by Vice President JD Vance, despite multiple videos suggesting this had not been the case.
Bovino has become a roaming field general for Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his masked so-called “Green Machine” Border Patrol team having been deployed far beyond the border since last summer.
He first put himself front and center in militarized sweeps in Southern California before shifting east to spearhead Chicago’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in September and quickly sparked civil-rights litigation over aggressive street tactics and crowd control.
It was during that operation that his credibility became a core issue. Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis accused him of being evasive and “outright lying,” after finding his sworn account of a tear-gassing incident was contradicted by video evidence.
His story had centered on a claim that he had deployed chemical munitions only after a rock attack, which later unraveled under scrutiny.
After his Chicago stint, Bovino’s unit was redeployed again, in an eyebrow-raising pre-Thanksgiving flit to his home state of North Carolina, and then to Louisiana, before being deployed to Minneapolis as part of “Operation Metro Surge.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol’s parent agency, for comment.
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