Bovino portrayed as Confederate general in 2018 email exchange

Recently demoted border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who served as the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in several US cities, was compared to a Confederate general in an email sent to him by a colleague in 2018, according to multiple reports.

A border patrol agent who was later promoted to a senior role in New Orleans sent the email in question as well as a number of Confederacy-related images after Bovino canceled a job listing and installed that same agent – a white officer – in the listed role by bypassing the agency’s standard career-advancement process.

The move led to discrimination lawsuits by two border patrol agents, alleging Bovino’s efforts to manipulate the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) hiring process to obstruct the promotion of qualified Black and Latino applicants.

During the hiring process, an email exchange between Bovino and the man he eventually promoted, Christopher Bullock, included a picture of Confederate Gen William Mahone, of Virginia, with the words “Chief Bovino” written at the top.

Bovino reportedly replied, “Oh jeez, DELETE!!!!!” – but did not rebuke Bullock for sending the email.

Below, two other pictures were attached. The first showed civil war re-enactors dressed in Confederate uniforms assembled around a Confederate flag with the caption “NLL all hands meeting”, referring to the border patrol’s New Orleans sector, which stretches from Louisiana’s best-known city to the Florida panhandle.

The second photo showed Black Union soldiers at an artillery position during the war with the caption “NLL Sector HQ”.

The white supremacist Confederacy, which defended the ownership of enslaved people, seceded from the Union before losing the US civil war.

In a later deposition, Bullock said he sent the email to Bovino because Bovino was a “history buff” whom he believed would find it funny. Bullock acknowledged that the email was inappropriate and admitted that it could reasonably be viewed as racist.

The American Prospect reported that Bovino acknowledged the email was inappropriate, calling it “bogus”, “worthless” and a waste of government resources – but stopped short of labeling it racially motivated. The New Orleans news outlet nola.com reported that Bovino repeatedly said “no” when asked if it was racist.

“I did not find any racial connotations that would lead me to open an investigation for Mr Bullock,” Bovino said, as nola.com reported.

Bullock was later investigated and formally reprimanded for sending the email, the American Prospect reported.

Border patrol and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.

CBP officials Jon Joyner and Randolph Williams filed a lawsuit against DHS in 2019, alleging they were denied promotion because of their race after a supervisory position they applied for was canceled and later filled through a lateral transfer, with Bullock eventually receiving the position. They settled their discrimination claims in 2022 for undisclosed amounts, according to the American Prospect.

On Tuesday, Trump administration officials demoted Bovino from his role as the agency’s commander at large and sent him out of Minneapolis, where federal immigration agents in January fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Agents killed Good and Pretti, both 37-year-old US citizens, in separate cases 17 days apart.

Bovino had also reportedly made mocking and sarcastic remarks about the Jewish faith of Minnesota’s US attorney, Daniel Rosen, during a phone call with prosecutors in the state in January.

Administration border chief Tom Homan was put in charge of the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota and on Thursday said he “recognized that certain improvements could and should be made”, though he didn’t elaborate.