Get to know the man who currently leads the border patrol operations in LA

From Andrew., Sergio Olmos and Wendy FryCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

On the day after the Congress, President Donald Trump’s victory, Gregory Bovino, led his border patrol agents hundreds of kilometers north, passing through Kern County in a bold immigration attack that shocked the local agricultural community.

At that time, Bovino, the head of the El Centro sector, said his agents had a “predetermined list of goals”, many of whom had criminal records before leaving for Kern County. “We did our homework,” he said.

During the weeks thereafter, both the actual and the legal basis of Bovino’s brave meth fell apart. Border patrol documents Calmatters showed that 77 out of 78 people arrest his agents have no preliminary records with the agency.

Federal judge then ruled that the worship of a wide network-on the basis of random, without consonant stops, where daily workers and farm workers gather-probably-probably violate the Constitution’s defense against unreasonable searches. The Ministry of Internal Security’s lawyers have promised to redirect 900-plus Bovino agents to the Constitution. But that wasn’t enough. The judge has issued an order prohibiting the border patrol to make such attacks in the Central Valley of California.

“You just can’t go to people with brown skin and say,” Give me your documents, “said US District Court judge Jennifer L. Thorn.

Bovino’s shares seem to have grown only within the Trump administration.

On Thursday, Bovino-in his green uniform, with his tall hairstyle, argued to the Minister of Interior Security, Christie Nov and announced that he had led the customs and border protection operations in Los Angeles. In fact, immigration attacks that caused the protests have all the distinctive features of the Kern County Operation in Bovino.

Federal agents raised workers outside a home depot in Westlake They went after car wash workers in Los Angeles and clothing workers in LA CenterS And agricultural workers say border patrol agents have conducted operations around the Oxnard strawberry fields.

Bovino does not distinguish between field workers or dealers of Paleteros and Fentanyl. For him, they all meet one category: “Bad people”.

“For the customs and the defense of the borders, so we are here at the moment, it is to remove these bad people and bad things, whether they are illegal aliens, drugs or otherwise,” he told a press conference on Thursday. “We are here and we are not going.”

At this point, Bovino’s rapid rise from one of the 20 sections across the country to the face of Trump’s aggressive immigration bears in Los Angeles almost seems inevitable. His team uses a group of five agents to make videos by throwing away dramatic, fictional videos depicting migrants crossing the border by threatening blood to commit crimes.

Bovino seems to like the camera alone. The posts of the El Centro sector put pictures of it in a uniform, including a close-up with the AR-15 and one on a white horse in the desert, pressing a rifle. In interview With Calmatters in February, surrounded by a wall of armed agents, he laughed his other border patrol colleagues. “The twenty sectors in the US border patrol and we call ourselves the” premiere sector, “he said with a smile. “Therefore, please inform these other superiors that we have said it.”

Bovino loves to praise President Dwight Eisenhower, who led the most large deportation in American history, rounded 1.3 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans in 1954. The first buses deporting migrants – in what was called “Operation WetBack” – El Centre More than 70 years agoS

Kern County raids were presented as a “proof of concept” on how the border patrol could be mobilized for mass deportation operations away from the border. This is exactly that type of surgery according to Wall Street JournalWhite House Top assistant Stephen Miller wanted to see when he called the best immigration officers in late May and demanded more aggressive action. Miller, reports in the magazine, told employees that they do not need purposeful lists of immigrants – instead they just have to go to domestic landfills, inspiring LA raids.

Now, Bovino, at the same press conference in which the agents handcuffed Alex Padila after the senator tried to ask questions to Nov, he said he was sticking.

“You will continue to see us in Los Angeles,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”

A new series of raids in California

Bovino indicates Kern County, “Operation Returns to the Sender”. For three days, his agents have detained workers, farmers and others in a home -made landfill parking, outside a convenience store and on a highway between orchards.

ACLU filed a case on behalf of the United Ferms workers, arguing that indiscriminate stops violate the ban on the fourth amendment to unjustified demand and seizure.

The judge has not yet ruled in the full case, but found that ACLU was likely to succeed and issue a preliminary order prohibiting border patrol agents from taking such actions. This restricts them from stopping people unless they have a reasonable suspicion that man violates the US Act on Immigration. It also prevents agents from arriving without ghosts, unless there is a probable reason that the person is likely to escape before an order can be obtained.

The order is applied only to the Central Valley, but such legal challenges can wait after the last wave of breaks.

Defenders are still trying to cope with the scope and details of federal action in the last week.

Right after dawn on Tuesday, border patrol agents and other federal officers passed into the cities of Ventura, Kern and Tulare, according to the united farms workers.

UFW provided Calmatters with a video showing a white and green border patrol that pulls to a business in Moorpark. Two masked agents appeared and arrested a man in a baseball cap and a neon yellow work shirt that opened the gate shortly before 9am

A video shared on ABC7 social media It shows officers in the uniforms of the green border patrol chasing a farm worker through the Oxnard field. Another video Shot from a different angle shows a green -white border patrol that competes along the edge of the farm fields.

The agents seem to catch the worker, but it is not clear what happens afterwards. “There are many things we don’t know yet,” said Antonio de Loerra-Brust, a UFW spokesman. The union representing farm workers is working to contact families affected by raids.

Other videos show white and green vehicles that are commonly used by the border patrol, but so far the agency has not confirmed their participation. A spokesman for the customs and border defense, the Border Parent Parent Agency, told Calmatters to direct our questions to immigration and customs law enforcement. An Ice spokesman told Calmatters to contact customs and border protection with our questions.

“We have seen videos of border patrol trucks that have torn through the agricultural land. I heard reports of agricultural land operations and are still investigating whether the court’s order has been breached,” says Bree Bernwanger, ACU lawyer in Northern California, who brought Kern County.

“The fourth amendment really prohibits immigration agents from carrying out a community community, to make racial profiling, to target people just because they are brown or look like a farmer.”

Oxnard Mayor Louis Machatra said his cabinet also received disturbing messages for immigration officers trying to enter agricultural areas and conduct vehicles.

“These actions are completely unjustified and harmful. They create chaos and disaster in our community without contributing to public safety,” he said. “The persons affected by these operations; they are not criminals. They are hardworking families who make a significant contribution to our local economy and to our bigger community.”

Elizabeth Sttter, Vice President of UFW, said a number of employers have stopped federal agents from accessing their land.

“Throughout California, one thing that is good to hear is that we can confirm in a number of places that federal agents have tried to enter the worker and have been repulsed because the employer has taken the practical steps, such as Gates, and told agents that they could not enter the property,” she said.

In February, Bovino denied that his agents had gone after farm workers.

“For us, aimed at agricultural workers at their work, absolutely not. It has no merit,” he said. “But when the border patrol comes into contact with illegal aliens, you will be arrested.”

He promised to take his battle throughout the country. “Our area crosses Central California all the way to the Oregon border, so everywhere in this area, we will go where this threat is, and where we can cause the most damage to bad people and bad things as possible,” Bovino said.

So far, it’s Los Angeles. Bovino said he had several hundred agents and employees there at the press conference on Thursday.

“Many millions of illegal aliens have gone through this border in the last few years. Our job is to take them out,” he said. “And that’s what we’re going to do and what we’re doing right now.”

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.