The Administration · Justice, security and the military
CBP Commissioner
A Border Patrol agent for 29 years and its chief under Trump and briefly Biden, now running the 60,000-employee agency that polices the borders and collects tariffs.
Rodney Scott was born in Indiana and raised in Nogales, Arizona, on the Mexican border. 1 He studied aviation management at Cochise College and joined the Border Patrol on May 11, 1992, starting as a field agent at the Imperial Beach station near San Diego. 2 He rose to deputy chief of the San Diego sector in 2012, chief of the El Centro sector in 2016 and chief of the San Diego sector in 2017, with headquarters assignments in between, including in the agency's anti-terrorism office. 2
He became the 24th chief of the Border Patrol on February 2, 2020, under President Trump, and oversaw construction of the border wall. 2 The Biden administration removed him in 2021; Scott said he had been told to resign, retire or relocate without being given a reason. 1 He retired from the agency that year and became a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research group. 2
Trump announced his nomination in December 2024, and he returned to the agency in January 2025 as a senior adviser. 1 2 At his confirmation hearing senators questioned him about the 2010 death of a Mexican man in Border Patrol custody in San Diego. 1 The Senate Finance Committee took up his nomination on May 13, 2025, and the full Senate confirmed him 51 to 46 on June 18. 4 5 He took office on June 23. 1
As commissioner he leads more than 60,000 employees and directs the agency's counterterrorism, border security and trade enforcement work. 3 Two officers from his agency shot and killed Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, during an immigration operation in Minneapolis on January 24, 2026; the FBI later took over a federal civil rights investigation. 6
The acts and events that have defined the post so far, oldest first.
Testified at his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing, where he was questioned about the 2010 death of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas. 1
Confirmed by the Senate, 51 to 46. 5
Took office as commissioner. 1
Two officers from his agency shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis. Homeland Security first said he approached agents with a handgun; video reviewed by news outlets appeared to show him holding a phone. 6
The agency sent Congress a preliminary report on the Pretti shooting. Three days later the Justice Department announced a federal civil rights investigation led by the FBI. 6
What critics, courts or investigators have said, and the answer given. An allegation is not a finding.
A former agency internal affairs official, James Wong, alleged that Scott, then a senior San Diego sector official, supervised the handling of the investigation into the 2010 beating and stun-gun death of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, including an improper subpoena for medical records. The Justice Department brought no charges in the death, and the family settled a lawsuit for $1 million in 2017. An inter-American human rights panel found in 2025 that agents violated the man's rights. 1
Their side: No public response found in the sources opened. 1
Reports said Scott had been a member of a closed Border Patrol Facebook group in which agents posted offensive material; an internal investigation found 60 agents committed misconduct in the group. 1
Their side: Scott said he joined to monitor what agents were saying, saw nothing he needed to report and never posted such material. 1
Quotes from our stories, each matched word for word against its source before it ran.
“Our number one goal right out the gate is we have to know who and what is coming into the United States”
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott says fortifying the border is "non-negotiable" even though a federal judge has halted construction in the Big Bend region of Texas. The administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift that order, and critics call the $46 billion plan a waste of taxpayer money.
File checked Nov. 13, 2026. Something wrong or out of date? Tell the desk.
