President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday tapped a pair of longtime officials for key roles in his planned immigration crackdown, including an outspoken Border Patrol chief from his first term whom the Biden administration ousted.
Trump announced on social media his intention to nominate Rodney S. Scott, a former career border official whom Trump installed as chief of the Border Patrol in 2020, to run Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the country’s borders, including the Border Patrol.
In his announcement, Trump praised Scott for carrying out many of his signature policies in his first term, and credited him with achieving drops in immigration. “After retiring, Rodney has continued to educate politicians and the public about the importance of meaningful Border Security,” he said.
Scott ran the Border Patrol until 2021, when the Biden administration forced him out. He later told Fox News that he was reassigned from the job as chief after speaking his mind to the Biden administration and later retired. He explained in the interview that he “gave feedback and I told them where I thought things were going to go wrong. And they did not listen to any of the advice we gave them whatsoever.”
Scott was at the center of some of Trump’s most contentious enforcement actions. When he was head of the San Diego Border Patrol sector, agents fired tear gas across the Mexican border at migrants moving toward the United States.
And he was in charge of the agency when Border Patrol agents were deployed to Portland, Oregon, in 2020 to protect federal buildings during protests against police violence, but reports popped up of federal agents in riot gear inside the city and away from federal property. Scott pushed back against those reports.
He has criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies consistently in news media appearances and was part of a group of former homeland security officials who wrote an open letter urging the public to vote for Trump.
“President Trump respected the experience of career border security professionals and listened to our advice,” the letter read. “When border security experts explained to President Trump how illegal immigration empowers the cartels to control who and what enters our home, he listened and acted.”
Trump also announced that Caleb Vitello, a longtime Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, will run the agency in an acting capacity. ICE, which arrests, detains and deports immigrants living in the United States without legal permission, has not had a Senate-confirmed leader in years.
“Caleb’s exceptional leadership, extensive experience, and commitment to ICE’s mission make him an excellent choice to implement my efforts to enhance the safety and security of American communities who have been victimized by illegal alien crime,” Trump wrote on social media.
Vitello will be in a key position charged with overseeing Trump’s planned mass deportation efforts.