Courtesy of Heliotrope Books
By Steve Neavling
A former Border Patrol agent wrote a scathing memoir about working for a federal agency that she describes as inhumane, chauvinistic, and lawless.
Jenn Budd’s new book, Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol agent to Immigrant Rights Activist, is a condemnation of immigration laws in the U.S.
“What the Border Patrol and its agents do not understand is that there is no honor in abusing people, in treating them inhumanely,” Budd writes.
The memoir explores her time as an agent and her transformation as an activist for immigrant rights.
She says she was raped by an agent at the academy.
“I never expected to arrest families, women, and children who were not criminals but simply needed help to survive,” Budd writes. “I didn’t expect that my rape was more than an anomaly, but part of a large rape culture instigated and protected by generations of agents. I didn’t realize that I’d join a criminal organization disguised as a federal law enforcement agency. I didn’t expect to become a member of a deeply racist agency. I didn’t know any of it until it was too late, until I lost myself and my soul became untethered.”
The South Side Weekly describes the book this way: “This memoir is a horror story from the start. Each encounter and situation presents a new set of atrocities. After leaving training, she hunts and processes migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and witnesses their abuse. At the same time, Budd herself is a victim—harassed, endangered, and assaulted by her coworkers and supervisors.”
