Donald Trump’s top trench-coated immigration enforcer insists that ICE is getting “fantastic support” across U.S cities, despite polls showing most Americans have turned against the agency and its heavy-handed tactics.
As countless residents and businesses prepared to strike on Friday in protest against ICE, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino made the bizarre claim on NewsNation, which even prompted a bewildered response from host Leland Vittert.
Vittert had presented Bovino with data showing a marked change in public opinion toward ICE since last year, when controlling the border was central to Trump’s re-election campaign.
“About a year ago, a majority of Americans wanted every single illegal immigrant deported; 80 percent or so wanted those with criminal records deported,” Vittert told him.
“But now that it’s started to happen, the number of people who approve of the job that you all are doing is in the 30s. And the number of people who say ICE, Border Patrol, enforcement of immigration has gone too far, is in the 60s. How can you explain that?”
Bovino—the notorious face of Trump’s deportation strategy and the subject of Nazi cosplay memes due to his trademark green trench coat—took a much different view.
“What we’re seeing is fantastic public support,” he said, insisting that positive sentiment towards ICE had been consistent in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, Minneapolis.
“Here in Minneapolis (we’re seeing) a lot of thumbs up and a lot of ‘good job’,” he added. “A lot of it is under their breath, because they are afraid of that five or 10% of agitators.”
The wild claim comes amid ongoing protests in Minneapolis, two weeks after mother-of-three Renee Good was fatally shot in the driver’s seat of her SUV during an encounter with ICE officer Jonathan Ross on January 7.
But tensions escalated this week after it was reported that ICE had detained a five-year-old child who school officials say was “used as bait” as part of an immigrant operation.
Liam Conejo Ramos was apprehended along with his father shortly after arriving home from preschool on Tuesday, and later taken to a detention facility in Texas.
According to Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of his local school district, an agent had taken Liam out of the car, led him to his front door, and directed him to knock on the door, “in order to see if anyone else was home—essentially using a five-year-old as bait”.
Stenvik added that the family, who came to the U.S. in 2024, had an active asylum case and had not been ordered to leave the country. Both the child and his father have now been taken to a detention facility in Texas.
Vice President JD Vance sought to justify the operation on Wednesday, pointing out that the father was an undocumented immigrant who had tried to “run” when agents tried to arrest him.
“Well, what are they supposed to do?” he asked. “Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?”
Bovino also doubled down on Friday, saying that law enforcement officers were taking care of the child until he could be reunited with his family at a federal processing facility.
“We’re definitely the experts at dealing with children,” he told CNN.
But ICE has also come under scrutiny for its actions elsewhere, from U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents claiming they have been racially profiled by the agency to whistleblower reports suggesting that ICE has been using administrative warrants (issued internally by the agency) rather than judicial warrants (signed off by a judge) to enter homes.
This week, a medical examiner also found that the death of a Cuban migrant in a Texas ICE facility was a homicide caused by “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression”—contrary to what was initially claimed.
Asked if he was proud of how the administration was carrying out its deportation strategy, Vance replied on Wednesday: “I’m proud of the fact that we’re standing behind law enforcement, and I’m proud of the fact that we’re enforcing the country’s laws.”
Bovino has become the most notorious face of that enforcement.
But his trademark trench coat received international attention this week when California Governor Gavin Newsom shared a clip of the 55-year-old commander at the World Economic Forum in Davos and mocked him for looking “as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb.”
Asked about his signature look on NewsNation, a visibly irritated Bovino replied: “That coat is definitely Border Patrol-issue. I’ve had it over 25 years. I bought that at a young age in approximately 1999.”
