Retired Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino has hinted at a 2028 presidential bid and called for mass deportations, claiming there are "106 million illegals" in the U.S. Census estimates the nation’s population at about 341 million in 2025, and Pew estimated roughly 14 million undocumented immigrants in 2023. Analysts say Bovino’s figure results from conflating tourist visas, green-card holders and undocumented counts, a methodology that dramatically overstates the scale and raises legal and logistical concerns.
Former Trump Border Chief Proposes Mass Deportations — But The Numbers Don’t Add Up
Trump's Ex Border Boss Floats Mass Deportation Plan, But The Numbers Don't Add Up
Retired Chief Border Patrol Agent Greg Bovino — once a prominent face of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts — has suggested a 2028 presidential bid and outlined a hardline deportation plan that experts say is built on inaccurate figures.
Hours after news outlets reported Bovino was considering a 2028 run, he posted on X that his "grassroots" outreach shows "90% of the country wants mass deportations," and that removing "106 million illegals" would be his top priority.
Claims Versus Data
Those assertions conflict sharply with publicly available data. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2025 population estimate is roughly 341 million, meaning Bovino’s figure would equal nearly one-third of the entire U.S. population. Independent research offers a very different estimate of undocumented residents: the Pew Research Center put the number of undocumented immigrants at about 14 million in 2023.
How The Math Is Inflated
Analysts say reaching totals anywhere near 106 million requires conflating disparate categories of noncitizens — mixing short-term visitor visas, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), temporary workers and estimates of undocumented immigrants into a single figure. That approach dramatically overstates the size of the undocumented population and obscures important legal and logistical distinctions between visa categories.
"90% of the country wants mass deportations," Bovino wrote on X, and he pressed for immediate large-scale removals.
Practical and Legal Concerns
Beyond numerical errors, experts and civil-rights advocates note major legal, logistical, and human-rights barriers to any plan that sought mass removals on the scale Bovino described. Mass deportations would raise constitutional and international-law issues, require massive resources, and affect U.S. citizens (for example, families with mixed-status members).
Whatever Bovino’s political ambitions, fact-checkers and demographers say the public discussion should be grounded in accurate, transparent data — and a clear plan for how any proposed actions would comply with U.S. law.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau population estimates (2025) and Pew Research Center estimates of undocumented immigrants (2023).
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