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Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott is reflected in a window as he speaks with an officer in a border crossing booth during a visit at the Point Roberts port of entry between the United States and Canada, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Point Roberts, Wash.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Wasson\/AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson<\/p>\n
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott knocks on a metal obelisk marking a section of the international boundary line between the United States and Canada, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Blaine, Wash.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Wasson\/AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson<\/p>\n
A portion of border wall is under construction in the Big Bend region, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, near Sierra Blanca, Texas.<\/p>\n
John Locher\/AP Photo\/John Locher<\/p>\n
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott, left, listens to Blaine area port director Harmit S. Gill during a visit at the Point Roberts port of entry between the United States and Canada, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Point Roberts, Wash.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Wasson\/AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson<\/p>\n
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott, in black and white, walks with officers at Monument Park near Boundary Marker 1, the westernmost point of land on the border between Canada and the United States, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Point Roberts, Wash.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Wasson\/AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson<\/p>\n
BLAINE, Wash. (AP) \u2014 The Trump administration\u2019s top border official defended plans to build a wall and other infrastructure in Texas’ Big Bend region despite mounting opposition against the project and a court-ordered pause on construction, saying his goal of fortifying the country’s borders was \u201cnon-negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott argued that the $46 billion wall project was justified despite a bipartisan coalition of landowners, local businesses and environmentalists who view it as a waste of taxpayer money that could be destructive to a region with historically low migrant crossings.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOur number one goal right out the gate is we have to know who and what is coming into the United States,\u201d Scott said on Thursday. If the Big Bend region were left without a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas along the border get those fortifications, he said, \u201cI am 100% convinced it will be completely overrun and destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fight over Big Bend has become a major test for how far the Republican administration is willing to go for the border wall, President Donald Trump’s signature infrastructure project.<\/p>\n
Scott, a former Border Patrol agent, was tapped by Trump to complete it.<\/p>\n
His agency is responsible for executing a plan funded last summer by Republicans in Congress to line the roughly 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border with Mexico with a mixture of 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel walls, vehicle barriers, new roads and surveillance technology to prevent illegal immigration and smuggling.<\/p>\n
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The Trump administration says it is building about 12 miles (19 kilometers) a week. Scott, who gets daily progress updates, said it will be complete by the end of Trump’s second term. The primary border wall \u2014 some areas also get a secondary layer \u2014 will be done by the end of December 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re actually ahead of schedule,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
Big Bend is a test for the Trump administration’s plans for the wall<\/p>\n
The wall plan has run into resistance in places like Big Bend. The Trump administration suffered a major setback earlier this month when a judge ordered a pause on border wall construction in the region, citing what could be a likelihood that plaintiffs \u201cwill suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction.\u201d The administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.<\/p>\n
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The ruling included any construction in Big Bend National Park, an area that has seen a loud bipartisan outcry, including from some Republican lawmakers.<\/p>\n
After bulldozers were spotted in the park tearing up ground in August, Scott ordered a pause on all construction-related activity there while he went to talk to people in the region. He said the agency is making other outreach to locals to discuss how to build projects so they don\u2019t mar the park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking through and figuring out what is the right solution for that area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Scott said he can\u2019t get into specific details on what the agency\u2019s plans are for the park due to the numerous ongoing lawsuits, but he reiterated that the project won’t include tall steel walls.<\/p>\n
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He also said that the agency\u2019s stated goal of protecting the country and knowing what\u2019s coming in and going out is \u201cnon-negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the region’s formidable natural barriers were not enough to prevent people from entering the country illegally through other more navigable points. And he expressed concern that cartels that control smuggling from Mexico into the U.S. would exploit any opening.<\/p>\n
CBP has come under fire for immigration enforcement tactics<\/p>\n
Scott leads an agency of 67,000 employees responsible for controlling who and what comes into the country through official border crossings like airports or seaports and stopping illegal smuggling and migration outside those official border crossing points.<\/p>\n
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The agency came under heavy scrutiny last year when its officers were sent into cities deep inside the country to help carry out Trump’s immigration crackdown alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
As protests against an operation rocked Minneapolis, a Border Patrol officer and a CBP officer both fired shots in an encounter that killed a U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti. The shooting eventually prompted the Trump administration to wind down high-profile city-based crackdowns. A CBP officer who was the face of the missions, Gregory Bovino, who led a helicopter raid at a large apartment building and used chemical agents to confront demonstrators, retired earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Scott said while CBP still helps ICE, it’s now less involved in immigration enforcement far from the country’s borders because ICE has since hired more officers to its ranks. Scott wouldn’t comment on the investigation into the Pretti killing, saying that it was being handled by the FBI and was ongoing. And when asked about Bovino’s tactics, he said the officer didn’t report to him during the operations.<\/p>\n
Scott spoke to the AP just outside the border with Canada, where he met with border security representatives from other countries to share information about threats and trends. During his trip, he visited an operations center where he said Canadian and American law enforcement work together.<\/p>\n
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That border has far fewer threats than the U.S. border with Mexico. Scott said cartels in Mexico are increasingly sending drones into the United States to move contraband and keep tabs on Border Patrol agents. In Mexico, the cartels have been using drones to attack each other or Mexican law enforcement.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes CBP, recently announced temporary flight restrictions targeting unauthorized drone activity in a zone extending a mile (1.6 kilometers) north of the U.S.-Mexico border as a way to counter cartels.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure,” Scott said, \u201cthat threat does not come into the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott is reflected in a window as he speaks with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[58529,160534,145,87146,1468,23681,59373,87541,86083,86082,59370,59371,59372,61261,61262,51148,27,29,28,464],"class_list":["post-474432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-alex-pretti","tag-border-immigration-big-bend-rodney-scott-wall","tag-donald-trump","tag-gregory-bovino","tag-mexico","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30027-ap-arizona-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30031-ap-california-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30081-ap-new-mexico-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30109-ap-texas-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32520-ap-online-other-u-s-government-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-rodney-scott","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}