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WASHINGTON – President Trump’s candidate, who leads US customs and border security, faces scrutiny about his role in investigating the deaths of immigrants who were cruelly beaten by Border Patrol agents in 2010.
Critics argue that Rodney Scott is taking part in the cover-up and is not qualified to lead the agency. His advocates say he acted properly and called it a great choice to lead one of the largest federal agencies with over 60,000 employees, including border patrols and ports of entry.
Rodney Scott, who led the US Border Patrol until 2021, faced questions from the Senate’s death on Wednesday during a hearing to the Senate Treasury Committee, which considers his appointment.
“Today’s hearing is about determining whether Rodney Scott has that experience, along with the strength of his personality that is trusted in one of the most important tasks in government,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-ore.) “The evidence shows that he is lacking.”
Scott was serving as deputy chief patrol agent for the San Diego Border Patrol Division, preparing to deport Anastacio Hernandez Rojas, when he strode him in the aisle at the entrance to San Isidro until he stopped breathing. He died two days later in the hospital, leaving behind his wife and five children.
Federal officials say 42-year-old Hernandez Rojas fought an agent trying to take him out of the country.
Last week, Wyden wrote to the Department of Homeland Security seeking documents related to the death and investigation. The response of Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem on Tuesday did not include documents. She called Wyden’s “uninformed” explanation of Scott’s alleged role in the investigation “inflammatory.”
Noem said Scott was not on the scene when the incident occurred, and said he had limited involvement with the internal investigator team reviewing the incident and had no external investigations or hidden facts.
“Over seven local and federal investigators reviewed the circumstances of Hernandez Rojas’ death and found evidence of conduct that was inconsistent with laws, regulations or policies,” Noem wrote.
Roxanna Altorz, director of the Berkeley Law Human Rights Clinic in California, represents Hernandez Rojas’ family, but in a statement the family never received a full account of how the investigation was handled.
“His family has spent years asking the same questions. Can 17 agents from Customs and Border Protection, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, be able to defeat a man in public in front of dozens of videotape witnesses without consequences?” she wrote.
In 2017, the government settled a federal lawsuit with the family of Hernández Rojas for $1 million.
In a landmark decision on Wednesday, the International Human Rights Commission discovered that the US was responsible for the murder of Hernandez Rojas, and the cover-up continued. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous judicial organ within the American national organisation, has called on the United States to resume criminal investigations of related agents.
During the hearing, Wyden called Noem for not preparing the documents he requested.
“The secretary responded with a letter saying that Mr Scott was basically a complete angel and that all allegations against him were false, but I created a zero document that I requested that he back it up,” Wyden said. “In the first 100 days of this administration, the agency appears to be virtually allergic to the truth.”
Before Wednesday’s hearing, James Wong, former deputy deputy commissioner of the CBP’s Department of Home Affairs, wrote to Wyden with concerns about Scott’s handling of Hernandez Rojas’ death.
A unit known as the Critical Incident Team (CIT), which disbanded in 2022, investigated the use of the Border Patrol. They were “designed to reduce responsibility to senior Border Patrol managers and present the Border Patrol in the best possible light,” Wong wrote.
The team obtained Hernandez Rojas medical records using a management subpoena signed by Scott. Wong said “such subpoena should be “blatantly illegal” because “such subpoena should be used only for the very limited purpose of investigating imports and exports, not for the collection of medical evidence or searching for facilities.”
“By his position, Scott would have overseen all CIT operations in the case, and all CIT information would have been filtered through him to CBP headquarters,” Wong wrote. “This was a cover-up, not an investigation. It was one of those people Scott overseen.”
In a letter to Wyden, Noem wrote, “The signing of Mr. Scott and the enforcement of the administrative subpoena he signed are consistent with law and institutional policies.”
Court records show staff on the scene erased photos and videos from witnesses’ phones. The Critical Incident Team refused to give it to San Diego Police Department’s Hernandez Rojas medical records. The footage of the scene was written in a new recording.
Sen. Mike Krapo (R-Idaho) asked Scott if he “in that case he did something to interfere with the investigation.”
“It’s definitely not,” replied Scott.
Wyden also said he had trouble with other incidents in Scott’s past, and that he had never learned anything from his mistakes.
One of them was Scott, a private Facebook group for Border Patrol agents with over 9,000 members, including posts of racist and sexual violence.
Wyden also cited Scott’s reaction to Scott’s former border patrol agent and the sexual assault survivor who criticized Scott’s criticism against X.
Scott responded with his own post:
“I have investigated all of your allegations and I have not found a mass of evidence to support any of them, but I have found a lot about you.
The judge, called Scott’s post “Classic Rape Threat,” proved to have not come to be a threat of imminent violence.
Scott defended his record and said he was transparent throughout his career. He apologised to his former agent for his post and said he called it a “weak moment.”
“Everyone makes a mistake,” he said. “I think what I made was very minor. We learn from them and move on.”
The Biden administration forced his role in the 2021 Border Patrol after opposing instructions to halt the use of terms such as “illegal aliens.”
On Wednesday, both Democrats and Republicans congratulated Scott on his nomination. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) suggested that attempts to prevent his nomination from moving forward would not be successful.
“I apologize for the Smear campaign,” he told Scott.
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