The U.S. Border Patrol official who led controversial immigration enforcement raids in southern California this summer has arrived in Chicago, a new target of the Trump administration’s escalating crackdown on illegal immigration, two people familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The official, Gregory Bovino, is in the Chicago area as federal officials vow to initiate a blitz of arrests in the region targeting immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, according to the sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. Bovino was the top Border Patrol agent in California’s El Centro sector until he was given command of a broader immigration enforcement campaign across the state in June.
Over the past several months, Bovino has become one of the most visible public faces of the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to detain those living in the country unlawfully. He has accompanied rank-and-file agents on arrest operations and posted slickly edited videos of those sweeps on social media.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images 
In California, Bovino oversaw an effort by Customs and Border Protection, dubbed Operation At Large. Under that operation, Border Patrol agents, whose jobs have historically been limited to preventing the illicit entry of migrants and drugs into the country, have arrested unauthorized immigrants in places far from a U.S. border, like Los Angeles and Sacramento.
Bovino has personally led some of the operations, including arrests outside of Home Depot stores and a show-of-force at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles that involved mounted Border Patrol agents and armored vehicles.
In July, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that some of the immigration stops in southern California had been predicated on factors like race, language, occupation and location, instead of a reasonable suspicion that the subjects of stops were in the U.S. illegally. The judge barred federal agents in the region from basing arrests on those factors. On Monday, the Supreme Court paused the lower court’s order.
Bovino appeared to preview his deployment to Chicago last week, saying in a video he shared on social media that his team would be “taking this show on the road, to a city near you.”
“We’re gonna trade these palm trees for some skyscrapers, and the mission continues,” he said to the tune of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”
CNN reported on Monday that Bovino was being deployed to Chicago. A U.S. official said Bovino arrived last Friday in Chicago, where he’s expected to lead operations by CBP. The Trump administration has tasked the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, with being more heavily involved with interior immigration enforcement amid a historic drop in illegal crossings at the southern border in recent months.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has traditionally overseen immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior, this week launched an operation in the Chicago area that officials say will target immigrants in the U.S. illegally who also have criminal records. Officials have called the effort Operation Midway Blitz.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, criticized the operation’s announcement on Monday, saying the Trump administration should be coordinating with state officials to curtail crime.
“Instead of taking steps to work with us on public safety, the Trump Administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisians,” he wrote on X.
Asked to comment on Bovino’s arrival in Chicago, a spokesperson for DHS replied, “Stay tuned.”
Last week, CBS News reported federal agents had begun staging at a U.S. Navy station in the Chicago suburbs in anticipation of an increase in immigration operations there. An internal memo asked the Pentagon to accommodate up to 250 federal agents and 140 vehicles at the station for 30 days.
Over the weekend, DHS announced another ICE arrest operation in the Boston area, dubbed Patriot 2.0, that officials say is focused on unauthorized immigrants with criminal records.
