Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as the "commander at large" for the US Border Patrol and will return to his former job in California, where he is expected to retire soon, the Atlantic reported on Monday, citing a Homeland Security official and two people with knowledge of the change.
The US DHS, Customs and Border Protection, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bovino and a group of his agents are expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday and return to their respective sectors, CNN reported, citing three sources familiar with the discussions.
According to ABC News, which also spoke to multiple sources familiar with the matter, he is returning to El Centro, California, to resume his duties as chief of that sector.
The decision came after Trump pronounced that he was dispatching White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis over Alex Pretti's fatal shooting on Saturday, CNN reported. According to the White House, Homan is expected to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city.
DHS sidelines Bovino amid Minneapolis controversy
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suspended Bovino's access to his personal social media accounts effective immediately, according to a source familiar with the matter. The decision was made based on the fact that, over the weekend, the top Border Patrol official had discussed with lawmakers online, responding to their posts on X about the shooting, CNN reported.
According to the BBC, Bovino had inflamed the shooting situation in the aftermath, claiming that Pretti intended to "massacre" federal agents.
Earlier, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz weighed in on the Alex Pretti shooting. Walz invoked Anne Frank in exhorting Trump to call off the ICE operations in the Twin Cities, considering that Pretti was the second protester to be killed in one month in Minnesota.
Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Walz, whose master’s degree focused on Holocaust education, suggested that the conditions facing children in his state during the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement raids were of a kind with those facing Frank during the Holocaust.
“We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank,” he said. “Somebody is going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.”
The prominent mention of Frank, who died of disease in a Nazi concentration camp after her family’s hiding place was betrayed, adds to a growing discourse about whether ICE’s operations targeting immigrants in Minnesota can be compared to the Nazis’ tactics in rooting out Jews during the Holocaust.
Separately on Monday, President Donald Trump and Walz each struck a conciliatory tone after a private phone call about immigration enforcement, a sign the two sides were seeking a way to end their standoff over a deportation drive that has claimed the lives of two US citizens in Minneapolis.
Nevertheless, Trump administration officials have defended ICE's actions in the incident, even as video evidence contradicted their version of events and tensions grew between local law enforcement and federal officers.
As residents visited a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles in frigid temperatures and snow to mark the incident, the Trump administration argued that the US citizen assaulted ICE officers, compelling them to fire in self-defense.
Gregory Bovino, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union", could not offer evidence that Pretti was trying to impede a law enforcement operation, but focused on the fact that the ICU nurse was carrying a gun, which he had a license to carry.
"The victims are border patrol agents," Bovino said. "Law enforcement doesn't assault anyone."
Philissa Cramaer, from JTA, contributed to this report.