Photo Illustration by Alberto Mier/CNN/Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Greg Bovino thinks the Trump administration is weak on mass deportation. And he’ll share viewpoint that message anywhere he can — even on a whiskey bottle.
Months removed from his unceremonious dismissal as the public face of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration-enforcement surge, the former Border Patrol “commander-at-large” has found a new role as an anti-immigrant influencer, sharing his radical views with anyone who will listen. He regularly mixes in criticism of his former employers for what he views as their failure to live up to Trump’s mass deportation pledge.
Bovino has traveled to Europe to speak with members of right-wing parties on immigration crackdowns. He has frequented far-right podcasts to amplify his uncompromising outlook on immigration enforcement, is working on a tell-all book of his time in the administration and has lined up speaking engagements with young conservatives to share his belief that immigration is changing the fiber of this country.
Bovino has also created his own whiskey label, Commander’s Choice, with bottles available to pre-order for $99 with a label that says: “Deport them all. America first.” (“It’s a fantastic drink for law enforcement,” he told CNN. “It’s keto friendly.)
His antics have irritated more than a few people in the administration along the way. The Department of Homeland Security that once gave him unprecedented power now refers to him as a “disgruntled” former employee.
Those feelings go both ways. In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Bovino said he resents how his security detail was pulled after he retired despite the constant death threats he says he receives.
“Do I think they want me dead? At this point, yes,” he told Carlson.
In a series of interviews with CNN over the summer, and in podcast appearances, Bovino appears simultaneously hurt and furious over how the administration pushed him aside following the fatal shootings by federal law enforcement officers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two American citizens in Minneapolis.
“In a nutshell, what I wanted to do is continue the push for mass deportations and the push to save America from what’s happening here in terms of immigration,” he told CNN in a recent interview. “I don’t see those mass deportations occurring the way I think they need to go.”
Bovino appears to relish the controversy, dismissing criticism and maintaining that he’s not alone in his views that the administration is falling short of its immigration enforcement promises.
He’s continued to draw the ire of some within the administration – he won’t immediately say who — and he said he has been told, unofficially, to knock off his public airing of grievances.
“I said no — a lot more forcefully than no,” he said.
A loose cannon
Greg Bovino, former commander-at-large of US Customs Border Patrol, gives an interview to NewsMax during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, on March 26. Lev Radin/Sipa USA/AP
Bovino has long been known as something of a loose cannon with a penchant for provocative antics and social media trolling. Trump himself once described Bovino as “a pretty out there kind of a guy.” (“Maybe a lot of people think I’m out there,” Bovino said. “I really don’t care.”)
But to a segment of the president’s base that has become disillusioned with the administration’s more lowkey approach to immigration enforcement after the fatal shootings by federal officers of Good and Pretti earlier this year, Bovino has emerged as a leader with a clear-eyed view of what they believe is needed.
Mike Howell, a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and the president of the Oversight Project, said Bovino is “indisputably correct” in his criticisms.
“The Trump administration promised mass deportations and hasn’t delivered it yet,” Howell said. “And so, there is going to be that flank open, up until they deliver it.”
“Bovino is going to have a platform and credibility until he’s proven wrong by the Trump administration actually doing mass deportations, and so whether it’s him or anybody else, the field for somebody to reclaim the issue is wide open,” Howell added.
Immigration arrests, however, have increased over recent months. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took around 51,000 people into custody in August, according to a source familiar with the data, continuing an upward trend in immigration arrests and setting a new high under the second Trump administration.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents walk outside the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, California, on July 27. Blake Fagan/AFP/Getty Images
Still, some immigration restrictionists, including Bovino, say the administration is lagging.
He says immigrants who do not integrate into American society are a bigger threat to the country than those who are criminals or terrorists. He wants a temporary moratorium on all immigration to the US. And he doesn’t just want undocumented immigrants deported – he wants those living here legally who have not assimilated into his idea of American culture to go, too.
He believes more than 100 million people are living illegally in the country, which is multitudes more than even the most expansive estimates cited by anti-immigration hardliners.
(The Pew Research Center estimated there were a record 14 million undocumented immigrants in the US in 2023 — the most recent year with comprehensive data.)
While Bovino has his supporters, some former and current Homeland Security officials are frustrated by the attention he gets and have largely dismissed the ongoing public commentary.
The critics include those who support Bovino’s overall goal of reducing the population of undocumented immigrants in the country, but who were not impressed by the way the operations were handled earlier this year in cities like Minneapolis.
“Secretary Noem was pursuing this strategy of theatrical enforcement that he was kind of the face of, and there was no way that was going to be sustainable,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports reduced immigration.
“It hurt the president, and it hurt his agenda of reducing the illegal population. Part of the reason the administration is not deporting as many people as it would like to see is precisely because of the strategy that Bovino was the face of, that undermined the political support for deporting illegals,” he added.
Bovino’s decades-long career with Border Patrol ended earlier this year amid an internal investigation. According to government files, which were first reported by the Chicago Tribune and posted on the Customs and Border Protection website, Bovino was contacted by investigators on March 2 regarding “allegations of misconduct,” that were reported to the agency, including allegations that he had made antisemitic comments. Bovino has denied that the comments in question were intended to be antisemitic. He was also accused of lying about events during an immigration operation in Chicago, raising questions about his credibility, according to the files.
Bovino retired later that month. The results of that investigation were unclear. A CBP spokesperson said the agency “does not comment on matters regarding personnel who are no longer with the agency.”
Bovino told Border Hawk that he was forced to retire and claimed that CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility was weaponized against him.
‘We surrendered’
Then-Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino leaves after speaking during a press conference at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal in Minneapolis, on January 22. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
Bovino nurses some grudges about how his time in federal government ended, arguing that he was kneecapped from implementing the “total spectrum immigration enforcement” that he had hoped for, and which he is calling for now, before his vision could fully be realized.
“We surrendered in Minnesota,” he said. “We didn’t get there yet because it was cut off, as you know, very suddenly, and almost without explanation.”
He sees the upcoming midterm elections as a way to pressure the administration to double down on its immigration crackdown — in his vision.
Bovino is careful to avoid criticizing the president directly, but said he believes Trump is surrounded by ineffective officials who are more concerned by optics than results, citing White House border czar Tom Homan, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott.
President Donald Trump, flanked by White House "border czar" Tom Homan and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, speaks with workers painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, on May 7. Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images
“If I hurt someone’s feelings – some feckless government bureaucrat – because I’m telling the truth and they can’t handle the truth, well they can kiss my ass, by God,” Bovino said.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis broadly defended the administration’s immigration policies in a statement, saying that more than 3 million undocumented immigrants have left the country either through deportation or departing on their own. She also defended Homan.
“The American people are deeply appreciative of Tom Homan’s work and can rest easy knowing someone with a proven track record is working to deliver on the President’s promise to deport a historic number of illegal aliens,” Bis said.
A DHS spokesperson said “disgruntled former employees” were “welcome to criticize their nation’s leadership.”
Asked by CNN at a press conference in June about Bovino’s criticisms over Mullin’s leadership of his agency, the secretary tersely dismissed him.
“I’ve never met the guy,” Mullin said. “He’s irrelevant to me. I don’t know who he is.”
A book and a whiskey bottle
A promotional image for Greg Bonino’s whiskey label, “Commander’s Choice.” Commander’s Choice
Bovino has since moved back to his home state of North Carolina and frequently visits east Tennessee. He’s writing a book that he describes as a “book of truth, leadership, and philosophy,” beaming into interviews and fielding speaking engagements. Recently, he revisited one of the locations of his operations, leading to a confrontation between him and a local business owner.
He’s trying to prove a point. And also trying to monetize it.
“It’s all toward the same end. Are we going to bring attention to what the problem is? If I can use a whiskey label to do that, if I can use the podcast to do that, if I can go to a bakery?” he said.
Camden Ford, co-owner of Timber Creek Distillery based in Florida and maker of Bovino’s new whiskey, told CNN he connected with him by way of Bovino’s sister. “I’m happy to work with Greg if he wants to do a whiskey. I’m happy to work with anybody. I don’t really care about their politics,” he told CNN, adding that the distillery works with dozens of customers on private labels.
The two have discussed a series that would include a bottle for each of the operations Bovino led over the last year.
“He may be controversial, but it may be the thing that sells his whiskey for him,” Ford said.
The attention is also making Bovino a draw to the right-wing speaking circuit. He appeared at an event hosted by the group Save Heritage Indiana in August and is scheduled to appear before the New York Young Republicans Club later this month.
Globe-trotting and eyeing 2028
Former Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, right, is introduced during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, on March 26. Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Bovino is also spreading his message abroad.
In Portugal, he gave an interview with a far-right French publication in which he cited Nazi General Erwin Rommel, along with American figures like Gen. George S. Patton and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as people who became the faces of large movements because of the unique set of circumstances they faced. (Bovino told CNN his answer had “nothing to do with Rommel, his style [or] his beliefs” and that he only brought him up to relate to the European publication that interviewed him.)
In June, Bovino spoke at another conference in Romania, where he posted a picture of himself in front of the tomb of Vlad the Impaler, the former Wallachian prince whose bloodthirsty methods while resisting an Ottoman invasion gave him his gruesome name.
“He was sort of their original Border Patrol,” Bovino said. “He said, ‘You know, we’ve had enough of these Ottomans coming in and doing terrible things to our citizens. I’m going to try to do something about it.’ And obviously, back in the medieval times, things are a little different than they are now.”
In May, a group of political operatives set up a website — along with a PayPal donation link — encouraging Bovino to mount a presidential campaign in 2028. Bovino said he was unaware of that specific effort until it began and told CNN that he hasn’t seen a penny of any of the donations made on that website.
But he said young Republicans frequently ask him to run for president, that he finds the idea “very, very, very interesting” and that he is keeping his options open.
