Rodney Scott, the former head of the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego and President Donald Trump’s nominee to be commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, faced questions that largely focused on his tenure in San Diego during a sometimes contentious confirmation hearing Wednesday in front of the Senate Finance Committee.
Scott’s role in the investigation of the 2010 in-custody death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas at the San Ysidro Port of Entry attracted the most scrutiny. Scott testified Wednesday that he “absolutely (did) not” interfere with that investigation. News broke during the hearing that an international human rights commission that had spent years reviewing Hernández Rojas’ death released a landmark decision finding that U.S. federal agents violated international human rights laws in connection with the death and subsequent investigation.
Scott served from 2017 to 2020 as head of Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector and then went on to serve as chief of the entire agency, which is a component of CBP, for the final year of Trump’s first term. The Republicans who hold a majority on the Finance Committee signaled they’ll approve his nomination.
Once approved by the committee, Scott’s nomination will go to the full Senate for confirmation. If confirmed, he’ll oversee some 60,000 employees in an agency that’s part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem last week stating he has “serious concerns about the gross failures of integrity and leadership (Scott) has shown” in connection with the Hernández Rojas case. Hernández Rojas died in May 2010 after federal authorities at the San Ysidro Port of Entry beat, Tased and knelt on him. Scott, who was the acting deputy chief patrol agent in San Diego at the time, was not present when Hernández Rojas was fatally injured. But he signed an administrative subpoena for medical records that attorneys for Hernández Rojas’ family claim were then withheld from San Diego police as part of an alleged cover-up.
Hernández Rojas’ family settled a lawsuit against the federal government for $1 million, and the officers and agents involved in his death were not criminally charged. For years, his family has sought justice through a legal case in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is part of the Organization of American States and attempts to “promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere.”
In the report released Wednesday morning, that commission found that border agents tortured Hernández Rojas, used excessive force while he was restrained, discriminated against him, conducted a biased and incomplete investigation and denied his family justice, all in violation of international laws and protocols. The report, which was the first of its kind to examine an extrajudicial killing by U.S. law enforcement, did not name Scott specifically.
Scott acknowledged during Wednesday’s hearing that he signed the administrative subpoena in question. But he testified that it was a standard procedural act that he completed after the subpoena had been reviewed by legal counsel.
Scott joined the Border Patrol in 1992 and spent most of his career in San Diego. Trump named him head of Border Patrol in January 2020. He retired when he was ousted by the Biden administration in 2021 and spent the next several years as a fierce critic of President Joe Biden and his border policies.
“I’m very proud of that green uniform I wore,” he told the committee during his opening remarks Wednesday. “If confirmed, I will take a lead role in providing America with real border security.”
He said CBP’s job is to “not just protect a line on the map, but to defend the American people, our values and our way of life.”
Under questioning from Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, Scott acknowledged that most drugs from Mexico cross the U.S. border at designated ports of entry in vehicles driven by U.S. citizens. He also spoke about Customs and Border Protection’s role in safeguarding goods and travel amid the Trump administration’s shifting tariff policies.
Republican senators, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, praised Scott for his prior Border Patrol service and leadership and expressed optimism he’ll uphold Trump’s priorities. Johnson said Scott was being “smeared” to “distract the American public from Trump securing the border.”
Wyden questioned Scott’s lack of experience with customs enforcement, having served his entire career in Border Patrol, and brought up his admitted membership in a Facebook group where Border Patrol agents were found to be sharing jokes about migrant deaths, as well as racist and sexist comments. But most of the Oregon senator’s questions were focused on Scott’s role in the Hernández Rojas case and a 2021 social media post that landed him in front of a San Diego judge.
According to court records in a case seeking a restraining order, in an interaction that began with Scott’s endorsement to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, he tweeted a reply to an ex-Border Patrol agent who says she was raped at the academy that she should “lean back, close your eyes, and just enjoy the show.” Scott claimed in court that he didn’t view the phrase as a threat and was referring to the ex-agent’s “active imagination,” but the judge called it a “very, very common” reference to rape.
“Maybe you were the one person in the world that’s never heard of ‘lie back and take it’ as referring to rape,” San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert Longstreth said, according to a transcript of the November 2021 hearing.
“Will this committee accept a CBP commissioner who casually threatens women in this way?” Wyden asked during Wednesday’s hearing. “Our standards of character cannot have fallen so low that this can be dismissed as old news.”
Scott testified Wednesday that he did not view the post as a threat and said he apologized to the ex-agent, Jenn Budd, outside the courtroom after the hearing. Budd told the Union-Tribune that was not true.
“He never apologized,” Budd wrote in an email. “He lied in court … He promised the judge he would take down the rape tweet and he never did.”
Budd also said it was “reprehensible that (Wyden) would use my rape in a Congressional hearing and never even contact me.”
As for the Hernández Rojas case, the Finance Committee’s chairman, Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, said he received a letter from Noem clearing Scott of any wrongdoing. His actions were “in accordance with his duties, the law and professional standards,” Crapo said, citing Noem’s letter.
Wyden said Noem’s letter painted Scott as a “perfect angel” without actually providing the documents he requested to conduct proper oversight.
In Wyden’s letter to Noem and again during Wednesday’s hearing, he cited former senior CBP officials who criticized the subpoena that Scott signed. James Tomasheck, CBP’s assistant commissioner at the time of Hernández Rojas’ death, said that kind of use of an administrative subpoena was “illegal and potentially obstruction of justice,” Wyden wrote, citing court documents from the human rights case. James Wong, who was deputy assistant commissioner of CBP Internal Affairs at the time, called the use of the subpoena “improper if not criminal,” Wyden wrote, citing the court documents.
Hernández Rojas’ family and attorneys plan to speak publicly about the human rights commission’s findings on Thursday.
In a statement ahead of Wednesday’s hearing and before the commission’s report was released, the family’s attorneys said “the record in the case is damning” and that Scott’s role raises concerns about his integrity to lead the largest law enforcement agency in the nation.
“No agent has ever been held accountable for either the killing of Anastasio or for the obstruction of justice that followed,” Andrea Guerrero of Alliance San Diego and Roxanna Altholz of the UC Berkeley Law Human Rights Clinic said in a joint statement. “The abuse and the impunity that happened under Scott’s command raise serious questions about the integrity of Mr. Scott as a leader and should inform the Senate’s consideration.”
It’s not yet known when the Finance Committee will vote on Scott’s confirmation, nor when the full Senate would vote if the committee gives its approval.