US Border Patrol Could Become Trump’s Secret Police
An interview with former agent Jenn Budd
Budd, a former Border Patrol agent, and now one of the agency’s fiercest critics says the rogue agency wants even more power under Trump.
By Melissa del Bosque (Border Chronicle)
HAVANA TIMES – Today’s Q&A with Jenn Budd is part of a series that The Border Chronicle launched after the election, seeking the viewpoints of border residents and experts on what we can expect during Trump’s second administration.
In November we spoke with author Jessica Pishko about the role that sheriffs might play in Trump’s mass-deportation plans, and how some sheriffs might resist, as they did last time. We also spoke with Pedro Rios, an immigrant rights activist in San Diego, who expects the incoming administration to use “tactical dehumanization” and to expand open-air detention camps.
You can also check out our conversations with prolific author, photographer, and activist David Bacon on undocumented workers’ rights, and sociologist Nandita Sharma, who says in this podcast that now is not a time to become apathetic or despondent. It’s a moment for solidarity and mutual support.
We also spoke with Zachary Mueller, political director for the immigrant rights nonprofit America’s Voice, who for many years has tracked the rise of the GOP’s embrace of white supremacist messaging, and Erika Pinheiro, director of the border nonprofit Al Otro Lado, who warned that the Biden administration’s infrastructure and policies will further enable Trump’s mass-deportation plans.
Activist Jenn Budd, who is based in San Diego, was a senior Border Patrol agent for six years in the 1990s. In her memoir Against the Wall, she writes about misogyny, rape, sexual harassment, and corruption at the agency—harrowing experiences that would ultimately force her to resign. Now Budd is one of the Border Patrol’s fiercest critics, and today she advocates for accountability at the federal agency and for human rights at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In this Q&A, Budd talks about the role she sees Border Patrol taking as the Trump administration carries out mass deportations. And she worries that the highly politicized Department of Homeland Security—which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, of which Border Patrol is a part—could take on a far more nefarious role in the country’s interior as Trump carries out his agenda against immigrants, activists, and anyone else who disagrees with his administration’s policies.
I’ve noticed that Border Patrol officials have sought police certification in various communities. And in Texas, legislators gave Border Patrol the authority to arrest people for state crimes.
The Border Patrol already has much more impunity and less oversight than police. For instance, agents—within 100 miles of the border—can set up roving checkpoints or detain people without a warrant as long as they feel they have “probable cause” to suspect that they’re in the country without documents or smuggling contraband. So why do Border Patrol agents also want police certification?
The point is to have the authority to do things like no-knock raids, which they normally can’t do. It’s also to justify going into the interior and working with police. So we will see more raids like the one that just occurred in Bakersfield, California, which is more than 200 miles from the border, where they targeted farmworkers. They also do it so that people cannot question their authority whatsoever, so they can literally stop anybody for any reason, from the color of your skin all the way up to you committing any crime. I really think the Border Patrol’s intending to be Donald Trump’s, for lack of a better word, Stasi, or secret police.
This might sound like hyperbole to some, but we did see Border Patrol special teams in white vans kidnap protesters off the streets in Portland, Oregon, in 2020. And the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a political appointee, and so they serve at the president’s whim. Also, CBP and ICE combined make up the largest law enforcement agency in the country already. And now Trump is again saying he’ll add more Border Patrol agents.
Border Patrol has helped create the optics and narrative of an invasion. By advocating to shut down the asylum system, they know that will force people to cross illegally. That gives them the optics they need. And they expel people, who then turn around and try to come back again, like they did under Title 42. So you’ve got people trying to cross multiple times, which inflates the numbers of crossings. And every time that happens, they say the border is overwhelmed. Right-wing media, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and others then repeat this all in tandem.
It works well for Border Patrol because then they can say, “We’re overwhelmed. We need more people. We need more money.”
It does seem like there’s this constant chaos and a being overwhelmed narrative coming from the agency.
And, unfortunately, the press goes with it. The Democrats go with it because they don’t know shit about the border, and they just do what the Republicans do, but they try and do it a little more dearly, right?
We already have more Border Patrol agents than we need, and this is why you have Border Patrol agents spending all their time in schools, indoctrinating children or running citizens’ academies. We were doing it when I was an agent. I mean, just look at Laredo sector’s Facebook page.
So when a Border Patrol agent shoots someone, and the agency knows the press is going to come out to for example, “Campo station,” [a Border Patrol station, located in California] and ask about the shooting, they bring out the Citizen Academy people so that they control who’s talking to the press. The Border Patrol already has plenty of people. They’re in other countries training foreign border guards. They’re in intelligence deciding which journalists and activists to target, and all this other stuff.
The first Trump administration was full of cruel spectacle on the border, from family separation to military deployments and razor-wire-enforced border walls. Do you expect the second term to be similar, and will the Border Patrol be leading a lot of this cruel spectacle?
I think they’ve been testing us all these years. How much cruelty will the American people accept? Will they accept Border Patrol putting people in cages out in the middle of the Sonoran Desert? Will they accept Border Patrol taking people’s children away from them? I think what they learned from family separation is that they’re OK as long as Americans don’t see it. My sources in the Border Patrol tell me they are already erecting soft-sided tent facilities along the border.
You do a lot of humanitarian work along the border. Do you think the Trump administration will go after humanitarians?
Yes, I’m pretty sure Trump will criminalize humanitarian work. The administration will be using those constitutional sheriffs to hit humanitarians with fines. It will be $1,500 here and another $1,500 there and so on. Most of the people who do humanitarian work don’t have a lot of money. And so I’ve been telling volunteers, you may need to reassess and decide whether you need to back off for a while, because they’re coming for everybody. What this election tells us is that our institutions are corrupt. They’re not going to save us. We have to wait until something causes us to get into the streets. That’s how far we have to go.
What are you thinking in terms of resistance for the future and how you’re going to cope for the next four years?
I’ve been through so much trauma in my life, and I survived the Border Patrol, and I didn’t write a book about my experiences to then run away. So I’m staying here, and I’m going to continue to fight. And anybody who will work with me, I will fight with them, and I’m willing to put my body on the line and protest and be arrested when they start rounding people up. I’m going to fight for people who don’t have the privilege that my skin affords me, and my citizenship affords me. I’m going to be the biggest pain-in-the-ass white woman the cops have ever met.