Border Patrol Chief Admits They’re Arresting U.S. Citizens

Border Patrol has been arresting U.S. citizens, according to the agency’s leader.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino told Fox News Tuesday that his underlings had in fact arrested American citizens, claiming that they had cuffed U.S. nationals for assaulting border patrol agents.

“As far as American citizens, the vast majority of American citizens, especially that the U.S. Border patrol has arrested, many of those citizens assaulted federal officers, assaulted border patrol agents, in the performance of our duties,” Bovino said. “Anyone that assaults a federal officer, you’re gonna go to jail.”

The Homeland Security Department released a memo in November claiming that assaults on DHS agents had risen by 1,150 percent since 2024. They blamed the supposed rise on the rhetoric of sanctuary city politicians, alleging that political opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda—such as condemning ICE and Border Patrol agents as “Nazis” and “slave patrols”—had inspired the unprecedented violence.

“Our law enforcement officers have had Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at them, been shot at, had cars used as weapons against them, and been physically assaulted,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the memo.

Meanwhile, the tactics utilized by ICE agents to arrest and detain the undocumented population have been nothing short of appalling. ICE agents have violently ripped families apart, beaten suspects, and even detained elected officials attempting to visit their facilities or escort immigrants to and from scheduled immigration court dates.

But the agents have also masked their faces and intentionally tried to hide their identities, making the government officials practically indiscernible from violent laypeople as they invade homes, hijack cars, or assault people on the street.

Bovino himself is no stranger to violent behavior. In late November, the Border Patrol chief was slammed by a U.S. district judge after he semantically dodged questions related to his and his agents’ excessive use of force against protesters in Chicago. At the time, Bovino split hairs about how many canisters of tear gas he threw into a crowd as well as other alleged misconduct by officers under his command during “Operation Midway Blitz.”