Trump taps forceful ally of hard-line immigration policies to head Customs, Border Protection

The picture of who will be in charge of executing President-elect Donald Trump's hard-line immigration and border policies has come into sharper focus after he announced his picks to head Customs and Border Protection and also the agency tasked with deporting immigrants in the country illegally.

Trump said late Thursday he was tapping Rodney Scott, a former Border Patrol chief who's been a vocal supporter of tougher enforcement measures, for CBP commissioner.

As acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trump said he'd nominate Caleb Vitello, a career ICE official with more than 23 years in the agency who most recently has been the assistant director for firearms and tactical programs.

They will work with an immigration leadership team that includes South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as head of the Department of Homeland Security; former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement head Tom Homan as border czar; and immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff.

Customs and Border Protection, with its roughly 60,000 employees, falls under the Department of Homeland Security. It includes the Border Patrol, which Scott led during Trump's first term, and is essentially responsible for protecting the country's borders while facilitating trade and travel.

Scott comes to the job firmly from the Border Patrol side of the house. He became an agent in 1992 and spent much of his career in San Diego. When he joined the agency, San Diego was by far the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.

Traffic plummeted after the government dramatically increased enforcement there, but critics note the effort pushed people to remote parts of California and Arizona.

San Diego was also where wall construction began in the 1990s, which shaped Scott's belief that barriers work. He was named San Diego sector chief in 2017.

When he was appointed head of the border agency in January 2020, he enthusiastically embraced Trump's policies.

“He's well known. He does know these issues and obviously is trusted by the administration," said Gil Kerlikowske, the CBP commissioner under the Obama administration.

Kerlikowske took issue with some of Scott's past actions, including his refusal to fall in line with a Biden administration directive to stop using terms like “illegal alien” in favor of descriptions like “migrant”, and his decision as San Diego sector chief to fire tear gas into Mexico to disperse protesters.

“You don't launch projectiles into a foreign country," Kerlikowske said.

At the time Scott defended the agents' decisions, saying they were being assaulted by “a hail of rocks”.

While much of the focus of Trump's administration may be on illegal immigration and security along the US-Mexico border, Kerlikowske also stressed the importance of other parts of Customs and Border Protection's mission.

The agency is responsible for securing trade and international travel at airports, ports and land crossings around the country. Whoever runs the agency has to make sure that billions of dollars worth of trade and millions of passengers move swiftly and safely into and out of the country.

And if Trump makes good on promises to ratchet up tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada, CBP will play an integral role in enforcing them.

“There's a huge amount of other responsibility on trade, on tourism, on cyber that take a significant amount of time and have a huge impact on the economy if it's not done right," Kerlikowske said.

After being forced out under the Biden administration, Scott has been a vocal supporter of Trump's hard-line immigration agenda. He has appeared frequently on Fox News and testified in Congress. He's also a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

In a 2023 interview with The Associated Press, he advocated for a return to Trump-era immigration policies and more pressure on Mexico to enforce immigration on its side of the border.