Ousted Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino has gone from angling for his job back to launching a full-scale attack on the Trump administration.
Bovino, the one-time face of Donald Trump’s brutal deportation operation that culminated in the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents, condemned the president and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for what he described as a move to “water down mass deportations.”
On Sunday, Bovino shared a video of himself speaking at the Remigration Summit in the coastal city of Porto, Portugal, where far-right Europeans gathered to promote the mass expulsion of immigrants and minority groups from their countries. Ahead of the event, Bovino spoke to a far-right news outlet and said he was now in “battle” not with immigrants but with “timid politicians” afraid to target them on a mass scale, singling out Trump’s “inner circle.”
“I would have briefed Trump directly on several occasions, rather than relying on this inner circle who might have other interests,” he was quoted saying.
While at the summit, Bovino said that his former boss needed some “better advice” regarding immigration, in a blatant dig at current Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
“Mullin’s a great guy, great plumber, no doubt about that; he could probably fix a leaky faucet,” Bovino said of Mullin, who worked at his family plumbing business before he became a senator. “But a hundred million illegal aliens is not a leaky faucet.”
Bovino later doubled down on X, sharing those remarks paired with a lengthy caption.
“Trump’s team says immigration is his top issue according to the polls. Voters trust him on the border more than anyone. So why is [Wiles] pushing to dial it back and water down mass deportations?” Bovino wrote.
“You don’t win by running away from your strongest issue. Mass deportations are the solution to perpetual victory!” Bovino wrote.
Earlier, he also condemned what he saw as the federal government’s failure to address the week-long protest outside a New Jersey immigration detention center that has been accused of fostering inhumane conditions.
“Day 9 of the riots and people like [Wiles] and [Chris LaCivita] are steering the president toward caving to anarchists instead of the strong immigration enforcement voters demanded,” he wrote. “This isn’t what America voted for.”
Bovino then addressed the president directly.
“Mr. President, this is the path to perpetual victory; please follow it. We know you have healthy instincts and guts,” he wrote.
Days earlier, Bovino made it clear that he would be more than willing to step back into his old job as DHS’s chief goon.
In one post on Thursday, he suggested that he should “handle” the ongoing anti-ICE protests at Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
“Hey everyone, that’s me at the airport pointing to the next flight to Newark. Flight 3450, 2:27 PM, on time,” the 56-year-old wrote on X, alongside a selfie of him pointing at an airport gate departure screen.
“[Mullin] and the rest of them have been trying to handle these riots and… well, let’s just say it’s not going great,” Bovino continued, before offering himself up as the solution.
“For those of you in the comments section, give a vote. Should I just handle this myself?” he wrote, without actually posting a poll for X users to respond to.
He concluded his post: “Those agents’ lives are at stake due to this inaction. @SusieWiles.”
The White House has not acknowledged, at least publicly, Bovino’s incessant badgering. The Daily Beast has reached out for comment.
What is clear, however, is that a forced retirement after nearly 30 years does not appear to be sitting well with Bovino. Trump demoted him in January after he presided over violent clashes between protesters and federal agents that culminated in the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both 37, in Minneapolis.
Bovino, who became the subject of Nazi cosplay memes due to his trademark green trench coat, fumed during a Fox News appearance that immigration asylum is a “scam” that was “designed to break the system.”
