The Border Patrol commander who directed the Trump administration immigration operations in Minnesota until last week spoke disparagingly about the state’s Orthodox Jewish U.S. attorney, according to a report published Saturday in The New York Times.
Gregory Bovino mocked the idea of Jews as “chosen people” and disparaged Daniel Rosen’s practice of not working on Shabbat on a conference call in January, multiple attorneys in Rosen’s office told the newspaper. They said he had been frustrated that he was unable to reach Rosen, a Trump appointee, on Shabbat and noted that Orthodox criminals did not take the day off.
Bovino has not responded publicly to the report, which said Bovino used the call to press the prosecutors to indict more protesters. A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, told the newspaper that it was “focusing on gossip.”
The report comes as Bovino has exited Minnesota following the killing of two U.S. citizens amid aggressive immigration enforcement operations there. He has been demoted and cut off from his social media accounts.
It is not the first time that Bovino has drawn accusations of racial animus. A 2019 lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security accused him of passing over Black job candidates and women in favor of a white man. A deposition in the suit revealed that the man Bovino hired had sent him a picture of a Confederate general with the note “Chief Bovino.” Bovino instructed the man to delete the email but did not take action against him, according to the lawsuit, which was first reported last month by The American Prospect.
The allegations in the New York Times article come as Bovino’s critics, and some German media outlets, have said his signature “greatcoat” — an authorized but rarely worn part of Border Patrol uniforms — resembles the uniforms of Nazi officers. Bovino has rejected the comparison and denounced the critics.
“They’re trying to portray Border Patrol agents and ICE agents as Gestapo, Nazi and many other words,” Bovino told CNN last week, pronouncing the word “Gestapo” with an apparent German accent.
Rosen was confirmed in October in part on the strength of his leadership in the Jewish community in Minnesota.
