US Border Patrol chief Carla Provost to quit this month

Provost, 50, is the first woman to lead the 95-year-old federal law enforcement agency and has been in the role two and a half years. She was acting chief from mid-2017 through August 2018, when she was made permanent chief.

Rodney Scott, an agent for 27 years, will take over for Provost immediately after her exit. Scott, who is white, was a regional chief in San Diego, California, and recently moved to Washington, where he took over as acting deputy chief in October. He was selected as Provost’s successor last summer, but that decision was questioned by acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan in the fall.

Senior CBP officials told the Washington Examiner in November that Morgan, who is also white, lamented having “too many white faces” in Border Patrol leadership and wanted to make a show of goodwill to outside organizations concerned with diversity, given that agents work arresting and detaining people from around 150 countries annually. But CBP stuck with its plan to elevate Scott.

Thirty-four Democratic lawmakers in Congress called for Provost’s removal in August following a report that she belonged to the Facebook group “I’m 10-15,” where some agents vented and others wrote offensive comments about Democrats and people they took into custody. Morgan unsuccessfully pressured Provost to retire, but she did not. Her to-be successor, Scott, was outed by the Intercept last summer as also being a member of the page.

One CBP official said that even if Scott did not post anything inappropriate, his membership was just as concerning as others’ — if not more.

“You had a bunch of agents that were a member … they went and they removed themselves [when the story broke],” the official said. “Rodney Scott was the only one that did not remove himself from the Facebook page. His attitude was, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ His attitude was, ‘Who cares?’ His attitude was, ‘You know what, this is free speech. Who cares that there was a clear nexus and there was being shown a clear bias against, you know, possible illegal aliens in some of these posts. I’m not removing my name.’ He did not, while all of the other managers removed their names.”

Gloria Chavez, the interim chief of the El Paso, Texas, region, was long-expected to be promoted as Scott’s deputy in Washington. However, the first official said Chavez, who is of Hispanic background, is increasingly viewed as a liability for the organization due to her connection to husband Gustavo Zamora, a former senior Border Patrol official who was charged in an Arizona court last summer with four felony counts of kidnapping and sexual assault of a female Border Patrol employee. The Washington Examiner spoke with eight officials in December who said that Zamora, who oversaw discipline and investigations for western Arizona’s 800 local agents, was able to evade discipline before quietly retiring because of his connections, including his wife.

“If her husband is found guilty, it’s going to be pretty hard for her to continue as the deputy chief,” one of the CBP officials said.

The first official said Chavez’s promotion had been axed in December, which prompted Spokane, Washington, chief Henry Rolon, who had planned to move to Washington with Chavez and work under her at headquarters, to immediately retire.

It’s not clear whom the agency is planning to install under Scott.

“If Rodney goes in there and says, ‘You know what, there’s problems and I’m going to fix them,’ then that’s great because Rodney has a great personality, He’s easy to speak with. He’s very intelligent. But his history suggests that he has bought into this whole culture that exists,” one of the officials said.

Mike Matzke, local president of the Border Patrol union in El Centro, California, has worked with Provost, Scott, and Chavez — all of whom were once chiefs there. He said Scott and Provost were each “an agent’s agent.”

Provost is planning to move to San Antonio, Texas.

Scott did not respond to a request for comment.