Gregory Bovino, former commander at large for the US Border Patrol, mocked the US attorney for Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, for his Orthodox Jewish practices, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
According to the Times, Bovino complained in a January 12 phone call to Rosen's office that Rosen was difficult to reach over the weekend because of Shabbat.
In his complaints, Bovino allegedly asked if Rosen understood that Orthodox Jewish criminals don't take weekends off, and mockingly used the term "chosen people."
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin reportedly told the Times, "Instead of focusing on gossip, why don't you focus on something actually important like the victims of illegal alien crime or the criminals taken out of Minneapolis communities?" in response to the incident.
Rosen set on fighting antisemitism, hate crimes
After being confirmed for his position, Rosen had previously made statements about his focus on tackling antisemitism and other hate crimes, saying that "Jewish history tells us that Jews fare poorly in societies that turn polarized, and where that polarization evolves into factional hatreds in the non-Jewish societies within which we live. Those factional hatreds virtually always evolve into violent expressions of hate against the Jews."
Rosen also told Jewish Insider that "prosecution of violent hate crimes is certainly at the highest level of priority for me."
Bovino was removed from his role as the commander at large for the US Border Patrol on Monday and will return to his former job in California, where he is expected to retire soon, the Atlantic reported.