It’s about damn time: The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration has given marching orders to Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, a holdover from the previous administration and an ardent defender of its anti-immigrant policies. Scott had been appointed to the job by the previous administration in January 2020, and to the frustration of many, remained in that position until now.
But on Tuesday, Scott said in a statement that he posted on social media that he’d received notice from the Biden administration asking him to relocate, resign, or retire. According to the report, Scott has not decided which way he’ll go, but will remain in his current post for 60 days. “He said the notice did not provide a rationale for his removal, describing it a pro forma notice ‘so the new administration can place the person they want in the position.’” I mean, yes?
Once again, it was about damn time. Scott “enthusiastically embraced then-President Trump’s policies, particularly on building a border wall,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The Post reported that while former and current colleagues claimed Scott “provided the Biden administration a steady hand in recent months,” Scott also threw a fit over a Biden memo ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to stop using the offensive term "illegal alien.” Scott claimed that while he “will not undermine this effort,” he “cannot endorse it.”
Scott “said he was concerned that the changes could potentially politicize the agency,” The American Independent reported in April. Oh is that so, because under Scott’s watch, Border Patrol last year pushed a propaganda video featuring false anti-immigrant statistics and fictional, racist imagery. Investigative journalist Jean Guerrero tweeted that when she reached out to a spokesperson for Scott about the false stats, ”he did not deny their falseness or respond to that."
But he claims it is the inability of government officials to call human beings “illegal aliens” is what is politicizing the agency, or something. Scott continued to remain in his job in the new administration even as the LA Times reported in February that he’d been named in an international human rights case court filing accusing officials of covering up the killing of a Mexican migrant at the southern border a decade ago. Scott “signed the subpoena that was part of the Border Patrol's alleged cover-up of the killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, who was tased, stripped and beaten by a mob of border & customs officers in 2010,” Guerrero tweeted.
CBP said in a statement that replacing Scott following his departure will be Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz, a nearly 30-year veteran of the agency. “Yeah, he needs to be temporary,” tweeted Jen Budd, a former senior Border Patrol agent turned whistleblower. “There will be no changes in the Border Patrol’s racism and brutality as long as their command remains internal.” The Southern Border Communities Coalition tweeted that “[s]oon to be former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott has a history of refusing to cooperate with investigating agencies on cases involving migrant deaths & Border Patrol agents. It was time for him to go.”
President Joe Biden’s full budget request, unveiled in May, unfortunately called for no overall reductions at the ICE and CBP agencies. “At the border, Biden’s budget proposal calls for an increase in Border Patrol funding of $291 million, an overall 6.1% increase,” Immigration Impact said. “This would take the Border Patrol’s budget over $5 billion for the first time ever.”