Manolo Betancur, Image via Screngrab.
On Sunday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Manolo Betancur — owner of Manolo's Bakery, a prominent Latino business in the area — got into a heated debate with former U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who was kicked out of the bakery. And According to the Charlotte Observer, Betancur refused to let him in.
Observer reporters Mark Price and Mary Ramsey, "A Charlotte Latin bakery known for championing immigrant causes says staff members confronted the former commander of U.S. Border Patrol in its parking lot Sunday."
Bovino, according to Price and Ramsey, "was told 'he was not welcome' inside the bakery or on its property" in a Sunday post on Facebook.
Betancur told the Observer, "It's kind of sad, kind of scary. I just want to serve bread, man. I want to serve cakes, and I just want to keep chasing the American Dream. I didn't apply to be this face of this situation, and I keep asking God for wisdom with my words. You know, I don't want to create more division, more hate. I don't want to be part of the division. I want to be part of the solution."
Betancur's question, according to the Observer, is "why this bakery?"
According to reporting from WCNC-TV Charlotte, Betancur "said he is paying a steep financial price for" ongoing tensions between him and the Trump administration.
WCNC's Richard DeVayne explains, "The owner of one of Charlotte's best-known Latino-owned businesses said he is paying a steep financial price for standing up for his community, while the former Border Patrol commander at the center of the confrontation is disputing his account of what happened. Manolo Betancur, owner of Manolo's Bakery, said his decision to speak out against immigration enforcement became personal Sunday when he confronted former U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino outside his east Charlotte bakery."
DeVayne continues, "The encounter became tense as the two talked about immigration enforcement and its impact on immigrant families, workers and small businesses. According to Manolo's Bakery, Bovino questioned Betancur about why he regularly carries his passport. Betancur responded that people are being targeted because of the color of their skin, rather than their nationality. He ultimately told Bovino he was not welcome inside the bakery or in Charlotte. But Betancur said the confrontation is just one moment in a much larger struggle, one that has already cost his businesses tens of thousands of dollars."
In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, Betancur stressed that he never set out to become a symbol of a heated debate with Trump administration officials.
Betancur told the Observer, "It's kind of sad, kind of scary. I just want to serve bread, man. I want to serve cakes, and I just want to keep chasing the American Dream. I didn't apply to be this face of this situation, and I keep asking God for wisdom with my words. You know, I don't want to create more division, more hate. I don't want to be part of the division. I want to be part of the solution."
Bovino, meanwhile, doubled down on his position in a Monday post on X, writing, "We gave them hell here in this place and perhaps might again sometime. To my brothers and sisters in green - Ride Hard!!!"
Betancur told the Observer, "It has been a very tough year. You know, worse than the 2008 recession, worse than COVID. We haven't been able to get back on track."
Bovino, according to DeVayne, gave WCNC a statement "disputing Betancur's characterization of" Sunday's "encounter."
"(Bovino) said he was in Charlotte recording a podcast with Border Hawk News and stopped at the strip mall that includes Manolo's Bakery as part of a visit to several locations where he had previously commanded Border Patrol operations during last year's 'Charlotte's Web' enforcement operation," DeVayne reports. "Bovino said he wanted to show the area where he said businesses that 'potentially hire and depend on' people in the country illegally 'are flourishing,' and to argue that mass deportations are not occurring at the level federal officials have described."