The federal immigration agents who arrived in the Chicago area in fall 2025 as part of Operation Midway Blitz used tear gas, chokeholds and tackles in at least 140 separate incidents. They shot two people and arrested thousands. The agents dragged a daycare teacher out of work in front of crying children. They hit a pastor in the head with a pepper ball. The man who literally became the face of these operations in Chicago and across the country was Gregory Bovino, the former commander at large of the U.S. Border Patrol.
Our team of audio producers and reporters with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times set out to answer a simple question: Who is Gregory Bovino? As reporter Dan Mihalopoulous put it, “somebody goes from relative obscurity to sudden prominence just casually tossing tear gas into neighborhoods, well, you want to know who that is. You want to find out everything you can about him.” We wanted to produce a podcast episode that would be the definitive enterprise investigation of Bovino, to help audiences better understand the man leading the aggressive enforcement actions on the streets of Chicago. No such profile on the newly elevated “commander at large” existed.
So we began to record every call our reporters made, every conversation they had about the facts they uncovered, every twist and turn they were following. We’d later use these recordings to help shape the interview that became the spine of our narrative.
