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As President Trump shakes up the leadership of his immigration crackdown in Minnesota following the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents, we examine the expanding role of the agency in interior enforcement.

Independent journalist Todd Miller says the Trump administration’s immigration operations in U.S. cities are an “extension” of “policies and practices that we’ve been seeing in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands now for decades,” characterizing Border Patrol culture as one of rampant abuse and impunity.

We also speak with Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent who quit in 2001 and is now an immigrant rights activist. She disputes the claim that recent violence by CBP staff is a result of insufficient training. “The management of the Border Patrol has been corrupt for many generations, and then after 9/11 we just gave them money with little accountability and let them design their own accountability systems,” says Budd.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The Trump administration is removing Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino from Minnesota, after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old VA ICU nurse, Saturday morning. Bovino has been the face of Trump’s roving paramilitary-style immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other Democratic-led cities. Shortly after Pretti was killed, Bovino had claimed Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement,” a statement unsubstantiated by video and witness testimony from the scene. According to The Atlantic magazine, Bovino will return to his previous post in El Centro, California, is expected to retire soon.

This is President Trump speaking on Fox News.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know, Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy. And in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here. But you have to understand, when I watch some of the people that I’ve been watching over the last few weeks, these are paid insurrectionists. These are paid agitators. These people aren’t normal, like, oh gee, that, you know, they’re incensed about anything.

AMY GOODMAN: The Border Patrol has taken on an outsized role in Trump’s crackdown in the interior of the country — operations historically handled by ICE alone. Border Patrol has a history of aggressive tactics and little transparency or scrutiny in the remote areas and border towns where they normally operate. The agency also has more authority to operate far from the border than is commonly understood.

To talk more about the role and history of the agency, we’re joined now by two guests. Jenn Budd is a former Border Patrol agent turned immigrant rights activist. She was a senior patrol agent in San Diego and an intelligence agent at San Diego sector headquarters from ’95 to 2001, when she resigned. Her work is featured in the recently released film Critical Incident: Death at the Border on HBO Max. And Todd Miller is with us, an award-winning independent journalist who’s reported on border security and immigration for over a decade. His most recent book is Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front........

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