Patricia Bullrich (; born 11 June 1956) is a conservative Argentine politician. She currently serves as a National Senator for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires since December 2025, representing La Libertad Avanza. She previously served as the Minister of National Security from 2023 to 2025 under President Javier Milei, and from 2015 to 2019 under President Mauricio Macri. She was the chairwoman of the Republican Proposal until 2025.
She was born in Buenos Aires, part of the Pueyrredón family. Bullrich graduated from the University of Palermo, and as a young woman she was involved with the Peronist Youth. She married Marcelo Langieri, secretary of Rodolfo Galimberti; Galimberti was a leader of the Montoneros guerrilla and her brother-in-law. They went into exile in 1977, during the Dirty War, and she returned in 1982, after the Falklands War. She was elected deputy for the Justicialist Party in 1993. She left the party and started her own, but could not secure a re-election. She joined the cabinet of president Fernando De la Rúa in 2001.
Following the election of Mauricio Macri to the presidency in the 2015 Argentine general election, she became the Minister of Security. She placed regulations against roadblocks from piqueteros, and opposed the secessionist organization Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche. Leading the "hawk" sector of the Juntos por el Cambio coalition, she was appointed its president in 2020. She ran for the 2023 Argentine primary and general elections. She won the primaries against Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, but ended third in the general elections behind Sergio Massa and Javier Milei. She supported Milei on the ballotage with Massa. After Milei was elected President, he chose Bullrich to serve again as Minister of Security.
On November 30, 2025, Bullrich resigned from her post as Minister of National Security after she was sworn in as a Senator in the Argentine Senate.
Early life Bullrich was born on 11 June 1956 in Buenos Aires, daughter of Alejandro Bullrich, a cardiologist, and Julieta Luro Pueyrredon. She belongs to two wealthy families on each of her parents' sides. On her mother's side, she belongs to the Pueyrredón family, a traditional lineage of Spanish, French, and Irish descent whose members featured prominently in the early years of Argentine Independence (such as Juan Martín de Pueyrredón and Honorio Pueyrredon). On her father's side, she descends from Adolfo Bullrich, a businessman and politician of German ancestry, who served as Mayor of Buenos Aires from 1898 to 1902. Although it was a wealthy family, Alejandro and Julieta divorced, and Patricia adjusted to a simpler lifestyle when her mother got a job as publicist.
She became politically engaged from an early age, abandoning a potential career in field hockey to dedicate herself fully to political activism. She also worked at the Cheburger fast food joint and became a member of the food workers' union, encouraging coworkers to unionise as well.
She is the cousin of the singer-songwriter Fabiana Cantilo, and introduced her to Argentine rock. In the TV program "Almorzando con Mirtha Legrand" Cantilo explained that their mothers were close as siblings, and that Bullrich invited her to a concert of the band Pescado Rabioso, led by Luis Alberto Spinetta. This was the first concert that Fabiana Cantilo had attended, years before becoming a rock singer herself. Patricia skipped school classes one day to attend the music competition TV program "Si lo sabe cante", where she sang the song "El extraño de pelo largo" of La Joven Guardia. She was defeated in the competition.
Peronist Youth years Patricia's grandmother, daughter of Honorio Pueyrredon, took her to meet Ricardo Balbín, leader of the Radical Civic Union (UCR). The meeting had the opposite effect than expected, as there was a huge generation gap between them. Rather than make her embrace the ideas of the UCR, supportive of liberal democracy, she rejected Balbín and chose Peronism instead, which proposed far-left politics at the time. She joined the Peronist Youth (JP), the youth wing of the Peronist movement, aged 17. On 20 June 1973, she joined the procession to Ezeiza to bear witness to Juan Perón's return to Argentina following his 18-year exile, but left before the Ezeiza Massacre took place that same day.
She was also present at the Plaza de Mayo on the International Workers' Day of 1974, when Perón, who had once again become president of Argentina, expelled the Montoneros and the left-wing youth groups from the celebrations. Although both the Peronist unions and guerrillas such as Montoneros had worked together against the Argentine Revolution dictatorship, they had begun a dispute over their political clout on the new democratic government; with the aforementioned expulsion Perón openly sided with the unions. Bullrich herself was a member of the Montoneros under the nom-de-guerre of "Cali", and active in the Columna Norte subgroup commanded by Rodolfo Galimberti. Galimberti was Bullrich's brother-in-law, as he was married to Bullrich's sister, Julieta. Bullrich has denied being a Montoneros member, and maintains that she was just a member of the JP.
Perón died in 1974 and the Dirty War, an armed conflict between the Montoneros and the military, worsened: the guerrillas resumed the tactics used years before to attempt to remove the current authorities from power. In 1975, Bullrich was arrested for spray-painting political messages on the entrance of the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, and spent six months in prison. Upon being released, she dropped out of her sociology degree at the University of Buenos Aires and enrolled at the Universidad de Belgrano to study law. She also rejoined the Columna Norte. By the end of 1975, she started dating Marcelo Langieri, secretary of Galimberti. The 1976 coup d'état established a military dictatorship, the National Reorganization Process, that continued the armed conflict against the Montoneros. Montoneros organized an attack on 4 September 1976, that intended to kill a manager of the Sudamtex textile firm. On her way to participate, Bullrich felt that she was being followed and fled. The military had abducted one of the masterminds of the plan and learned about the attack, which allowed them to surprise the Montoneros and kill the whole unit. In January 1977, Galimberti and Bullrich attached an improvised explosive device to the car of Pepe Noguer, mayor of San Isidro. The device exploded, injuring the daughter and the daughter-in-law of the mayor, Ana María Noguer and Hortensia M. de Noguer.
Patricia Bullrich went into exile in 1977 with her partner Marcelo Langieri, first settling in Brazil, and later in Mexico, Spain and France. She was still a member of Montoneros living abroad, until Galimberti cut ties with the organization in 1979. She returned briefly to Argentina in that year, to give birth to her son Francisco and went back to Brazil, which was the country where she spent most of her years in exile.
Political career Bullrich returned to the country after the 1982 Falklands War. She had conflicts with Dante Gullo over the reorganization of the JP, thinking that it should have its own political leaders rather than follow the older ones. Peronism lost the 1983 Argentine general election, so she joined the internal faction of Antonio Cafiero that sought to renew the party. Peronism returned to power in 1989 when Carlos Menem won the 1989 Argentine general election. She was elected deputy for the Justicialist Party (PJ) in 1993, alongside Erman González. She proposed over two hundred bills, including the Art University law, the Cinema law, and the Leasing Contract law. In 1995, she was named the Legislator of the Year.
Patricia Bullrich left the PJ in 1996 and started New Leadership alongside Gustavo Béliz. She had disagreements with him because she thought that he managed the party unilaterally, without making her part of the decisions. She left the party as a result and, after briefly considering joining the Frepaso, she started another party. Initially named Cambio 97, it was soon renamed "Unión por Todos" (UPT) as the Cambio 97 name had already been registered. The new party did not get enough votes to allow her to be reelected as deputy in the 1997 Argentine legislative election. She then worked for the Buenos Aires Province on security matters, assisting the municipality of Hurlingham. She resigned in 1998, because of conflicts with León Arslanián, minister of justice of the province.
In 1999, the UPT became part of the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education, which took Fernando de la Rúa to the Presidency. Bullrich was appointed to office in the Department of Criminal Policy and Penitentiary Matters. In 2001, she was made a cabinet minister, as Secretary of Labour, Employment and Human Resources and, later that year, as Secretary of Social Security. In 2001 she announced a cut of 13% on retirement wages above $574, 16% of all retirees, which would reduce the deficit by 68.6 millions of pesos.
De la Rúa resigned, and eventually the governor of Buenos Aires Eduardo Duhalde was appointed president by the Congress. Bullrich relaunched the UPT in 2002, aiming for the 2003 presidential elections. The party platform announced reforms on labor and education. The UPT did not take part in the elections, supporting instead Ricardo López Murphy of the Recreate for Growth party, who ended in the third place. Both parties united in the alliance "Unión para Recrear Buenos Aires", proposing Bullrich for mayor of Buenos Aires. She ended in the fourth place, with 9.76% of the vote.
The UPT joined forces with the Support for an Egalitarian Republic (ARI) and created the Civic Coalition to run for the 2007 Argentine general election, with Elisa Carrió as a candidate for president. Bullrich ran instead for deputy for Buenos Aires. Her centrist politics and polemical history as a government minister, however, contributed to the disenchantment of a group of left-wing members of ARI who left the Civic Coalition.
Minister of Security (2015–2019)
Mauricio Macri was elected president in 2015 and Patricia Bullrich was appointed Minister of Security. Within the first days, three criminals convicted for torturing and killing three pharmaceutical businessmen escaped from a high-security prison, leading to a nation-wide operation to recapture them. Bullrich announced on 9 January that the three criminals had been captured, but, in reality, only one had been captured. She tendered her resignation to Macri because of the mistake, but Macri rejected it. The other two criminals were captured a few days later.
Bullrich proposed a protocol to remove roadblocks caused by piqueteros. Such blocks should be announced in advance, restrict only part of the roads, and last for a short time. They should cease if ordered so by the police, and those who commit violent actions shall be detained. This protocol was approved by a meeting of the ministers of security of all provinces of Argentina. Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, chief of government of the Buenos Aires city, and María Eugenia Vidal, governor of the Buenos Aires province, refused to endorse it, as they thought that doing so could prove controversial. Instead, they preferred to negotiate and stay on good terms with organizations of piqueteros such as the Evita Movement. Larreta also explained that the city does not need to endorse the protocols because it already has regulations for roadblocks.