WASHINGTON — Months before two fatal shootings in Minneapolis by Border Patrol agents, Gregory Bovino, who until last week was overseeing the agency’s immigration enforcement operations, pushed back against internal efforts to temper his aggressive approach, according to an email that was obtained by NBC News.
Bovino wanted to conduct large-scale immigration sweeps during an operation in Chicago in September, but the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, told him the focus was to conduct “targeted operations,” arresting only of people known to federal agents ahead of time for their violations of immigration law or other laws, according to the correspondence.
“Mr. Lyons seemed intent that CBP conduct targeted operations for at least two weeks before transitioning to full scale immigration enforcement,” Bovino wrote in an email to Department of Homeland Security leaders in Washington, referring to Customs and Border Protection, which oversees Border Patrol agents. “I declined his suggestion. We ended the conversation shortly thereafter.”
Yet after 10 days of more targeted enforcement in Chicago, DHS leadership gave Bovino permission to use his more aggressive approach, and Border Patrol agents he oversaw began to stop people they believed were in the U.S. illegally, according to a person familiar with the conversation between Bovino and Lyons…