Border Patrol Official Falsely Claims Citizens Must Carry Immigration Documents

In December 2025, U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino asserted that people must carry immigration documents under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a claim civil-rights lawyers and legal experts say misstates the law. Under the INA, only noncitizens are required to carry proof of legal status; U.S. citizens have no such obligation. The claim followed incidents in which citizens, including an Alabama construction worker who presented multiple REAL ID cards, were held in handcuffs by federal agents unsatisfied with the proof offered.

The episode matters because it reflects an enforcement posture in which federal agents are questioning people's citizenship without individualized suspicion, and a senior official is publicly defending that practice using an inaccurate legal premise. Civil-liberties groups, including the ACLU, say the incidents amount to unconstitutional detentions of citizens.

The controversy has intensified scrutiny of aggressive immigration-enforcement tactics under the administration and raised concerns that citizens, particularly those perceived as immigrants, face a rising risk of wrongful detention despite having committed no violation of law.