S quinting, his thumbs hitched into the waist of his beige chinos, Brandon Judd stood next to Donald Trump, prepared to plant a sloppy one. It was February 2024, and Trump was in Texas to mercilessly flog border security as he ran to regain the White House. The tiny border town of Eagle Pass had become a flashpoint in the immigration debate, with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seizing a park adjacent to the Rio Grande and erecting barbaric makeshift barriers nearby, including concertina wire and a mid-river flotilla of giant orange buoys separated by circular saw blades. On Abbott’s orders, the Texas National Guard reportedly was denying the Border Patrol access to the park, even for humani- tarian reasons. That policy allegedly contributed to the drowning deaths of a mother and her two children as they attempted to traverse the waterway. Border Patrol agents were “pissed,” Judd told reporters that day, and he was in a good position to know. The Arizona-raised Judd was the president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union that repre- sents more than 16,000 line agents and support staff. But those agents weren’t pissed because Abbott’s soldiers were denying them the ability to process migrants, Judd said. They were angry because “President Biden’s policies continue to invite people to cross here.” “Thank goodness,” he added, “we have somebody that’s willing to run for presi- dent of the United States, forgo everything else that he’s been doing, to serve the American people.” That statement offered a uniquely obse- quious appraisal of Trump’s motivations — at the time, “everything else he’s been doing” amounted to facing federal and state prosecution, which Trump’s election win successfully neutered. But it was also the type of MAGA ass-kissing at which Judd had become particularly practiced. For years, Judd had trafficked in the same alarmist, nativist rhetoric that had become a trademark of Trump’s politics. He’d spewed it in front of Congress and dozens of times on Fox News, using the imprimatur of his union office to promote hatred of migrants. Though the Border Patrol union is made up of agents of all political stripes, Judd gleefully doled out its endorsement to mostly Republican candidates who leveraged tensions over immigration to advance their political careers. Judd, it appears, was doing the same. After nearly a decade as a union honcho, he resigned in May 2024 and became a frequent campaign surrogate for Trump, appearing at rallies in Arizona and North Carolina and remaining a constant critic of Trump’s opponents on conservative outlets. In December, a month after Trump trounced Kamala Harris at the polls, Judd got his reward. Trump announced he was nominating Judd to be the next U.S. ambassador to Chile, praising Judd for having “helped me develop and implement the most effec- tive Border Security policies in our Nation’s History.” Pending the approval this fall by the full Senate, Judd’s retire- ment from the agency he first joined nearly three decades ago likely will be crowned both with his Border Patrol pension and a sweet gig in one of the richest countries per capita in Latin America. It’s quite the payoff for a man who entered the Border Patrol shortly after graduating high school in the small Cochise County town of St. David. The rise of the 52-year-old Judd — from lowly agent to de facto face of the agency to intimate of Trump and now future ambassador — mirrors the trajectory of so many in Trump’s orbit who have calculated that access to power is worth the abhorrent anti-immigrant views one must promote to obtain it. As Judd prepares for a cozy few years in South America, his ascendancy just goes to show: Snuggle up next to an aspiring dictator, and the sky is the limit. BLIND AMBITION Judd’s story begins in St. David, a sleepy, overwhelmingly white and Mormon hamlet of less than 2,000 people about an hour southeast of Tucson. The town was founded in 1877 by a group of settlers sent from Utah by Brigham Young, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and named for David W. Patten, one of the first martyrs of the Mormon Church. The area is stocked with plenty of Judds. Many are believed to be descen- dants of either Hyrum or Zadock Judd, brothers and veterans of the Mormon Battalion that marched through southern Arizona in support of the Mexican- American War in the 1840s. Cochise County Justice of the Peace Randy Judd told New Times that he’s a distant relative of Brandon’s, as is ex-Sheriff Jimmy Judd. Former county supervisor Peggy Judd, a Republican who pleaded guilty to a misde- meanor in October for her part in delaying the certification of the 2022 election, told New Times she believes she’s related to Brandon, too. Attempts to contact Judd, who now lives with his wife in Pocatello, Idaho, were unsuccessful. But according to a 2021 interview with Mark Krikorian — the exec- utive director of the nativist thinktank the Center for Immigration Studies and author of the book “The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal” — Judd always had his eye on a law enforce- ment career. “Law enforcement was just something that growing up it was natural in my family,” Judd told Krikorian. “A lot of family members are law enforcement, so I always wanted to go into law enforcement and the Border Patrol is just a natural fit.” Left out of his account was Judd’s connection to Chile, where he served two years as a missionary for the LDS church. That part of his life was overlooked publicly until Judd mentioned it during his April confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Judd praised “the deep solidarity between Americans and Chileans,” which he saw “every day during my time living in Chile in the 1990s serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Mesa resident Paul Whetten served alongside Judd as a young missionary. He recalled Judd as “obedient” and insistent on following the rules, which Whetten called the “hallmark of a good missionary.” He and Judd lived with Chilean families, ate Chilean food and learned to speak the Chilean-accented version of Spanish. THE KISS-ASSADOR BY STEPHEN LEMONS With Donald Trump back in power, Brandon Judd’s views have found purchase beyond the realms of right-wing media. Judd figures to reap the rewards. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
