First the masks, then the coat.
Ever since agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement began to spread out across American cities, their uniforms have been points of contention. Clothes have become symbols of the battle over Trump administration immigration and deportation policies, their enforcement and the debate about whether those policies are a tool of authoritarianism or a justified reaction to an untenable situation.
The face masks (or buffs or gaiters or scarfs) worn by agents that hide them from the eyes of the public, or protect them, depending on the point of view, were the initial point of contention.
Now, as the situation in Minneapolis escalates and more and more images emerge of protesters pitted against ICE agents, another one has reemerged: the overcoat worn by Gregory Bovino, the official in charge of President Donald Trump’s Border Patrol operations.
Known as a greatcoat, the long, double-breasted Army-green coat with wide lapels, big metallic buttons, epaulets and insignia on the arms stands out amid the sea of bomber jackets and tactical vests worn by the ICE agents around Bovino. It is impossible to ignore. And it has become a flashpoint in the online conversation about ICE, in part because its historical antecedents are also impossible to ignore.
It was, after all, part of the classic military costume in World War I and II.
For anyone who has seen pictures of those wars, which is pretty much anyone who has taken a history class in school, the connection is almost Pavlovian in its immediacy and intensity.
And while the greatcoat was worn by officers on both sides of the world wars, including Gen. Douglas MacArthur, it is closely associated with the German military under Adolf Hitler. And thus it did not take long for Bovino’s coat to become, for many viewers, a sign not just of militarization but also of tyranny, as various commentators have been quick to point out.
The coat became a talking point late last year when Bovino led ICE operations in Los Angeles and Chicago, and the Department of Homeland Security posted a video set to the tune of Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” and featuring quick cuts of Bovino in the field with the subtitle “We Will Not Be Stopped.” Among the shots: numerous images of Bovino in his greatcoat.
Almost immediately, Gestapo comparisons began. Even California Gov. Gavin Newsom got in on the debate, adding a post on the social platform X: “If you think the calls of fascism and authoritarianism are hyperbole, pause and watch this video.”
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in an email that the coat was part of a “standard-issue Border Patrol winter dress uniform.” Bovino has worn it “since 1999,” she wrote, noting that the coat was already available to officers at that point. (In a 2025 document detailing the Border Patrol’s Uniform and Grooming Standards, a greatcoat is not listed as part of any official uniform.)
“There are legitimate policy debates to be had, but manufacturing fake outrage and likening law enforcement to the Nazis or Gestapo is incredibly dangerous,” McLaughlin continued, attributing an increase in assaults against law enforcement agents partly to the issue.
The problem, said Harold James, a professor of history at Princeton University, is not necessarily the coat, which like many items of military garb was long ago appropriated by fashion, but the way Bovino is wearing it and the context in which it is worn.
“Using the coat to confront crowds with armed supporters, together with Bovino’s cropped hair and the (apparently) black or dark clothing underneath, gives the unmistakable whiff of dictators and of the 1930s,” James said in an email. Accessorized with black leather shoes and gold-trimmed patches, it is a look, he said, “intended to intimidate and also provoke.”
Although the Department of Homeland Security has regularly protested the comparisons to Nazi Germany and has asked people to tone down their language, Bovino has not stopped wearing his coat — or the black scarf and shoes he wears with it. While he has sometimes worn the standard ICE uniform since the Minneapolis protests began, he has also appeared in the greatcoat, despite the way the look was being interpreted.
In this, he is in line with the Trump administration’s clear embrace of the power of costume as a tool of communication, be it the MAGA hat or Trump’s patriotic blue suit, white shirt and red tie, which many of the men in his Cabinet and his party have embraced, the better to demonstrate their allegiance.
Bovino is also emulating the approach of his boss, Kristi Noem, who underwent a makeover of sorts before joining the administration and is given to holding news conferences in ICE gear or a cowboy hat, as if to emphasize the wild, wild West nature of the frontier over which she presides. (As governor of South Dakota, she once made marketing videos in which she donned the outfits of various professions — dental hygienist, highway patrol officer, electrician — to demonstrate that her state was open for business.)
It is possible that Bovino, by wearing the highly recognizable coat and accoutrements of an old-fashioned strongman, is playing to a very specific audience. Trump loves a man in uniform, as his military parade demonstrated. Even, apparently, if that uniform means that some minds go straight to the SS.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
