SAM DINGMAN: A new HBO documentary called “Critical Incident: Death at the Border” tells the story of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas. Hernandez Rojas died in 2010 after being handcuffed, beaten, and tasered by Border Patrol agents near the San Ysidro Port of Entry. At the time, Border Patrol agents claimed that Hernandez Rojas had been violently resisting them.
Subsequently, however, eyewitness videos taken at the scene called the Border Patrol’s version of events into question. The documentary tells the story of the journalists, lawyers and family members who pursued the truth about Hernandez Rojas’ case. One of the most pivotal sequences in the film centers on a former Border Patrol agent named Jenn Budd.
Reviewing case files related to Hernandez Rojas’ death, Budd discovers the involvement of a subset of Border Patrol called a Critical Incident Team. These secretive groups, the documentary alleges, are tasked with manipulating evidence in agent-involved incidents. Budd’s discovery alters the trajectory of the investigation into what really happened to Hernandez Rojas.
Jenn Budd is now an immigrants-rights activist in San Diego, and after I watched the documentary, I spoke to her about her role in the film and her experience as a Border Patrol agent — much of which she wrote about in a 2022 memoir called “Against the Wall.” Budd eventually left the Border Patrol because of things she witnessed while serving — including the work of Critical Incident Teams [CIT].
JENN BUDD: I was an unusual Border Patrol agent in that I entered the agency with a bachelor of science in criminal law from Auburn University. And I graduated at the top of my class with honors and was going to go to law school to be a civil rights attorney when I joined the Border Patrol.
And I had run into these teams in the field and a couple of times when I responded to shootings. And I have witnessed them cover up scenes. In the scene that I had witnessed as an agent, fortunately nobody had died, but obviously if you continue down that line of logic, obviously if somebody had died then I would have been looking at the cover-up of that.
So when I was first asked to look at the Anastasio case, I was kind of like, "I wonder if they're going to have the CIT teams in there." And sure enough, they did. I had no idea that they did this and used it in court because I was not one of the members of that team. And so it was shocking for me to actually see this. And then that's the only time I've ever seen that. So it was a mistake by that attorney that it went into documentation like that. He's not supposed to do that.
DINGMAN: And would you be able to share Jenn just to back up, you had mentioned that you had witnessed a Critical Incident Team during your own time with border patrol engaging in a cover-up. Are you able to say what you saw?
BUDD: Yeah. So in that case, essentially, I was down on the border area in Campo, California, and there was an agent south of me right on the border wall line. A sensor had gone off. He got out of his truck to go after them. So I was — we were trying to kind of sandwiched the group in between us since I was north of him.
And as I'm coming down a ravine south, I hear gunshots go off, and I announce over the radio that there's gunfire and we need assistance. And I went running south. All the people in the group had made it back south and the agent was standing there with his gun in his hand. And he had it up to his head and he was like, "Oh my God, I'm going to lose my job. ..."
And I'm like, "What is going on?" And he said, "I got scared and they came running back and I shot." And I'm like, "Do you think you hit anybody?" And he says, "No, I don't think I did." And I'm like, "OK, just, you know, put your gun back in your holster and wait here."
And this was back in the day when we had a lot more gaps in the wall. And so the way they ran south, there was a gap in the wall. And I went south to see if I could find anybody who was injured or any blood. And I did not see anything.
I don't know if the Mexican federales were ever called ... And then I stayed on top of a rock as I watched the Critical Incident Teams come in. And the supervisor — this was the first time I had understood what they were, that he's like, "Oh, there are guys, they're going to be a liaison. They'll look at the scene" and this and that.
They realized that nobody was injured, but they still had to protect the agent, because they still had to do a report. And so if he's pulled his weapon and he's shot, then they need to show — and this is what you see in the cases today with Renee Good and Mr. Pretti — is they need show that the agent feels that his life was in danger for him to justify pulling that gun and shooting.
So then I watched these Critical Incident Teams pick up rocks and throw them into the windshield and damage the truck that was not damaged at all —
DINGMAN: Oh, my God.
BUDD: And yeah, and so they created the scene that they needed to justify that the agent was justified in pulling his weapon and shooting and that he feared for his life. And so that's how that case was written up.
DINGMAN: Can I ask, one of the other really disturbing elements of the documentary is the description on the part of the person who, at the time of the documentary at least, I'm not sure if this is still the case, is one of the heads of Border Patrol. He says, speaking of Border Patrol, "We think of ourselves as paramilitary, not law enforcement."
And then there's another speaker later in the film who characterizes the training that Border Patrol agents receive in the same way. That agents are encouraged to think of themselves as military actors in war zones, essentially. Not as law enforcement agents, which would imply obviously a much different set of protocols. Are those characterizations consistent with your experience as a Border Patrol agent?
BUDD: Not when I first went through the academy, because I started at the beginning of 1995. So that was a year into this militarization of the Border Patrol. So I got to see a bit of the Border Patrol beforehand, when we saw ourselves more as a civilian immigration law enforcement agency.
But certainly I witnessed the militarization as it's come up. And it is true they see themselves as a paramilitary organization. They do not believe — and we are trained this in the academies — that the First Amendment does not apply down here. So when you come through our checkpoints to go to a grocery store, you do not have the right to freedom of speech. You do not have the right to freedom of movement. The press does not necessarily have the right down here in regard to the First Amendment. You do not have your right to the Fifth Amendment to not utter a sentence that might incriminate you.
So when you come through our checkpoints on your way to the grocery store or hospital or to work, we require you to state whether you are a citizen or not. And if you are not, then you must prove you have the legal right to be here. You have to prove that. We don't have to prove anything. You have to prove your ... legitimacy to us. And at the same time, we also are trained that the 14th Amendment doesn't really apply down here as well.
And this is all consistent with the Supreme Court rulings of the 100-mile rule that your constitutional rights are limited 100 miles from any land or water barrier.
DINGMAN: Is there any sort of rationale given to agents, in your experience? Or is it more of a situation where it's just kind of said and the expectation is that because of chain of command, agents will abide by these very incendiary claims?
BUDD: It's because the majority of our enforcement is aimed at people who are undocumented. And the belief is that you're undocumented if you cross that line, even though it is a misdemeanor, that you have invaded the United States. They will often say that they're like the Marine Corps of the federal service, and they are the last line of defense against invaders coming into this country.
They do talk about it as a war zone. And so the language of the old patrol prior to 9/11 and the new patrol now is much different. It's way more militarized. The terms they use are different than the terms we used back in the day. And so we see a lot of this and a lot of the recruiting.
DINGMAN: And if I'm hearing you right, part of that is this mindset that has been implemented of you're, you're looking for terrorists, you're combating terrorism. ...
BUDD: Mmm hmm.
DINGMAN: We'll have more of my conversation with former Border Patrol agent Jenn Budd after the break.
We continue now with my conversation with Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent who is now an immigrant rights activist.
Based on her experiences with Border Patrol culture, I was curious to get Jenn's perspective on the recent tragedies in Minnesota where U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by ICE agents.
It is important to note that ICE and Border Patrol are not the same thing. Border Patrol agents are generally responsible for enforcement at ports of entry to the United States, whereas ICE, as we've seen, often operates within cities. But under the Trump administration, the lines between the groups have blurred somewhat, and Border Patrol agents have taken part in recent immigration sweeps in Chicago, North Carolina and Minneapolis.
As you heard in the first part of our conversation, Jenn Budd brought a unique background to her work with the Border Patrol. And I also wanted to know more about what prompted her to join in the first place.
BUDD: Well, I was raised in Alabama in the 1970s. I was born in '71, so we didn't have the internet. And even when I graduated college with a degree in criminal law, I had never even heard of this thing called the Border Patrol. And we were not talking about this kind of stuff, at least in Alabama in the early- and mid-90s.
And after I graduated from college, I wanted to go to law school. I went back home and I started having what I now understand is PTSD issues. I grew up in an extremely violent household. My mother was extremely physically violent and emotionally violent with me, a severe alcoholic.
And, excuse me, and I decided I needed to — I decided I needed to. To get out of there in this thing called the Border Patrol is hiring. I have known my whole life that I was gay. That was not something that was consider acceptable in my household. And I kind of joined the Border Patrol to escape and get to California and start my life, and live my life the way I wanted to. I had no idea I was leaving one abusive family and going into another one.
DINGMAN: What did you experience when you were there that that makes you characterize it that way?
BUDD: When we first got into the academy, the women in front of us came to our dorm rooms or townhomes at the time, in the middle of the night to tell us what would be of us. They said, you're either going to date and have sex with your instructors in order to get through this academy, or you'll be raped into this academy, one or the other. That's the way it goes.
DINGMAN: Oh, my God.
BUDD: And in my third month, I did a four-month academy, in my third month, I was raped by a classmate. And at the time, quite honestly, even though I was older than most of the others and a college graduate, you just don't really think that this is really true and sounds kind of ridiculous that a whole base full of people who want to be federal law enforcement officers would be ... behaving this way.
And I just wanted to get out to my station and prove that I could be a good agent. And what you're seeing in the streets does not surprise me at all.
DINGMAN: Well, you have described in this conversation both personal abuses that you suffered while you were training to become a Border Patrol agent and explicit cover-ups that you witnessed happening by the Critical Incident Teams. As you have watched the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and many of the other incidents that we have seen, what has gone through your mind in terms of what you know about the culture?
BUDD: This is the culture of Border Patrol. And it's exactly what I'm used to, the ramming of the cars and then saying that you didn't do anything, that they're the ones that rammed you. They do something that's going to get a lot of attention like the shooting of Ms. Good or Mr. Pretti. And then they immediately come out — even though they don't know the evidence, they don't know the whole situation. And they get into the media and they just hammer on the victim.
The agents are always the victims. The victim is always the aggressor. You know, we go back to the film in 2010 with Anastasio was they made sure to test his blood after he had already been injected with drugs that would restart his heart by EMTs. To then turn around and put out into the media, "Oh my God, he tested positive for an amphetamine." Well, of course he did. They're trying to pump and get his heart started. Of course he did. And so what we see in this video of Mr. Pretti is just more demonizing of the victim and saying, "Oh, look, he kicked our tail light out."
Well, that may be, but that's not worth a death sentence. So, you know, unfortunately, these agencies, I feel both ICE and Border Patrol in particular are — they violated the Constitution. They're killing Americans. I feel that those agencies, quite honestly, are beyond reform. The cultures are so embedded in them. And I'm not saying we don't need enforcement along the border. We do. But I do not believe that these agencies and the management of these agencies are up to the task.
DINGMAN: Well, I have been speaking with Jenn Budd, who is a former Border Patrol agent. She's the author of the memoir, "Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol to Immigrant Rights Activist." And she appears in the new HBO documentary "Critical Incident," streaming now. Jenn, thank you for this conversation.
BUDD: Thank you.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story and its accompanying audio have been updated to correct that Budd is based in San Diego.
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