EXCLUSIVE — Senior Trump administration officials, including a Cabinet member, tried to force out President Donald Trump’s top border official over disagreements about how to reach the president’s deportation goals and ethical concerns, eight sources alleged during conversations with the Washington Examiner.
Those involved said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a special government employee at DHS and Noem’s close ally, have waged an aggressive campaign to make U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott so uncomfortable at work that he would resign.
The lengths that the officials have gone to nudge Scott toward the exit were described by two people as “evil.” The tactics, the sources said, included actions that would negatively impact the families of senior CBP staff.
Noem and Lewandowski view Scott as a threat to their success atop the 260,000-person department because Scott, a federal agent of three decades, has voiced concerns about the approach the duo has taken to enforce immigration laws.
“[Scott] asks questions or challenges them when they make decisions that they may not have knowledge of, or should I say, have no experience with,” the first source wrote in a text message.
Noem and Lewandowski plotted to promote two Border Patrol agents viewed as loyalists who would continue the flashy, sometimes questionable tactics CBP personnel have used while assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This is supposed to be the time that we’re supposed to be elbows to elbows and rising to the top with all the support that we have from the president, but now we have to deal with this BS instead of trying to really fix the immigration system,” said a second person.
Noem and Lewandowski are not without their reasons. DHS has been under pressure from the White House to increase deportations and expeditiously install the border wall, among many other responsibilities. Getting the president’s agenda done is the priority, according to administration officials.
Law enforcement vs. politicians
Scott was a Border Patrol agent for 30 years and served as chief during Trump’s first term. The Senate confirmed him in June 2025. As CBP commissioner, he oversees 67,000 federal employees and the nation’s largest law enforcement agency. CBP is responsible for securing the nation’s borders, while ICE handles immigration enforcement inside the country.
Sources said Scott first took issue with DHS leadership because he believed Lewandowski had worked beyond his 130-day cap as a special government employee at DHS, which would render the instructions Scott gave him irrelevant.
Lewandowski has been in the role for a year, and all eight sources said he is very involved in daily operations. The DHS did not answer how many days Lewandowski has worked.
Scott was also concerned about Noem and Lewandowski’s approach to immigration enforcement. He had pushed back on how the Border Patrol could be used to help ICE because both agencies had different missions, and the optics could have a lasting, negative effect on the Border Patrol.
“Noem and Lewandowski see people like Rodney Scott, Tom Homan, and Todd Lyons as threats because they carry institutional credibility that doesn’t depend on proximity to power or press,” a fourth person said.
The DHS and ICE have been under intense pressure from the White House since last January to amp up arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants, including in a tense showdown last May, when White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller “eviscerated” ICE officials in Washington for not hitting Trump’s goal of 3,000 arrests per day.
Sources said it appears DHS has chosen to go after Scott’s inner circle to interfere with his work and ultimately drive him out of his position by resigning. Noem does not have the authority to fire Scott; only Trump can do so.
“The most evil was when they attacked other people in retaliation to get to [Scott],” the first person said. “Corey Lewandowski said that he wanted to make it as tough on these people as possible, their families, their children, everybody.”
Pink slips fly
Scott unexpectedly received an order from DHS leadership in October to fire a senior employee with less than 30 minutes’ warning, according to three sources.
“[Scott] was like, ‘Hey, listen, they missed an email. They were driving,’” the first person said. “‘We don’t care. We want them fired.’ So we’re talking government employees who have done their jobs for all these years, some may be close to retiring.”
Scott was told to fire Andrea Bright, CBP’s head of Human Resources, who had been in charge of hiring 8,000 new CBP employees funded by the One Big, Beautiful Bill.
“She is like that gal that has worked for the government human resources for so many years that all the other agencies seek her out because she’s so smart,” said the first person. “She was the one at CBP who was responsible for moving some of those Border Patrol officials to ICE to take over those field offices.”
The Washington Examiner reported in October that DHS was planning to move lower-ranking Border Patrol agents to leadership positions at ICE. Scott was accused of slow-rolling that effort, though those aware of it said the pace was not in his control and was affected by the speed of the White House Office of Personnel Management.
About a month ago, Scott learned that his chief of staff, James Kernochan, had been abruptly moved to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Scott’s deputy, John Modlin, who had previously been the head of Border Patrol in Tucson, Arizona, was given seven days to decide whether to resign, retire, or relocate his family to Boston for an unrelated homeland security job.
“I don’t think for one minute Donald Trump knows that a 30-year veteran of the Border Patrol who grinded out the whole entirety of the Biden administration, most of it in Washington, is getting treated like he just walked in off a f****** bus,” said a fourth person. “He’s not some schlub.”
CBP’s Executive Assistant Commissioner of Enterprise Services Ntina Cooper, an award-winning government employee who personally briefed Trump on border wall plans, was also let go.
The DHS-aligned source said Scott “overpromised and underdelivered” on installing the border wall quickly, saying that progress had been “incredibly slow.”
“When the promise of building two miles in a week is underdelivered on … pressure starts to come from the White House,” the same person said.
The Trump administration installed 20 miles of wall in its first year, compared to none being built in new areas of the border 30 months into the president’s first term.
Half of the wall installed thus far was funded through the One Big, Beautiful Bill, which CBP could not spend until September. The other half came from unused money from fiscal 2018, which two sources said Noem did not know was available for use.
The same official who defended Noem and Lewandowski said the border was secured before Scott was confirmed in his position in June, largely by the Coast Guard and Department of War assets.
CBP data shows that illegal immigrant arrests at the southern border did drop to below 10,000 per month in many of the first six months of 2025, down from 100,000 to 250,000 arrests monthly under Biden. Given that the border went from a crisis state to quiet, agents have been sent nationwide to help ICE.
New leaders brought in
In an internal memo obtained by the Washington Examiner, Scott told senior officials across the agency in December about his new deputy, whom the DHS had selected for him. The new appointee was Joseph Mazzara, previously special counsel to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Noem later tapped to serve as acting general counsel at DHS headquarters.
All matters were now to go through Scott’s deputy commissioner, rather than him, sources said the DHS told Scott.
Scott also shared that three new officials would move into his office, none of whom he had selected.
Last week, a senior CBP official, Steve Schorr, was abruptly fired.
“[Scott] told him to do something, and one of those new three folks told him that nothing is to leave that office till it goes through them [even though they are ranked below him]. So they fired him — they guy that’s a year away from retirement,” said the fourth person.
Seven sources said they anticipate that if Scott resigns or Trump is convinced by Noem and Lewandowski to fire him, DHS will move Michael Banks, the national chief of the Border Patrol, to take over as CBP commissioner. Banks had retired from the Border Patrol as a GS-14, below the rank required to oversee it.
Banks has strong ties to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who told the Washington Examiner in an interview last week that his work on the border with Banks was a leading reason Trump won in 2024, suggesting close ties between Texas and the Trump administration.
“After he was elected, Trump called me and thanked me for what I did in the busing program because he said it shined a white hot spotlight on a very important issue, and suddenly he was able to gain traction on that issue, and that was one pivotal reason why he was elected to be president,” Abbott said.
In place of Banks, those involved anticipate Noem and Lewandowski want to push Gregory Bovino to be Border Patrol chief. Bovino, the Border Patrol’s El Centro, California, regional leader was tapped last June to oversee a temporary surge of agents into Los Angeles.
Five people said Noem made that decision and told Bovino he would report directly to her, an unprecedented move to have Bovino go around Scott and Border Patrol’s national chief, Mike Banks. The DHS and CBP did not address or dispute this point when asked for comment.
Bovino has led Border Patrol to other cities and is currently in Minneapolis.
A united front
When asked for comment on the list of concerns that sources shared, the White House, DHS, and agencies shared similar statements that maintained Trump’s team was united in its mission.
“This is one team and we have one fight to secure the homeland. President Trump has a brilliant, tenacious team led by Secretary Noem to deliver on the American people’s mandate to remove criminal illegal aliens from this country,” the DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “Everyone is on the same page: the President’s page. Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Todd Lyons, Corey Lewandowski, Rodney Scott, Gregory Bovino, and Mike Banks are patriots who wake up every day to make this country and its people safer.”
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said Lewandowski “has been a force in helping” federal law enforcement and Noem “is the most effective” DHS secretary in history.
“The President’s entire immigration and homeland security team – including Secretary Noem and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott – are on the same page and have worked seamlessly together to deliver on the President’s agenda,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday praising Scott for a “great interview,”, a move that was met with relief among those who spoke with the Washington Examiner. DHS and CBP personnel who shared information anonymously, as they are not permitted to speak with the press, said they fear being “polygraphed” by the secretary’s team upon publication of the story and that DHS would search for those who spoke out.
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Scott was asked about the claims in an email. In a statement sent from CBP, Scott focused on the results of the Trump administration.
“Under President Trump, U.S. Border Czar Homan, and Secretary Noem, we have delivered the most secure border in American history,” Scott said. “We are operating with the President’s vision and innovative and efficient execution, not the old ways. We are all working to implement the President’s agenda.”
