OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Border Patrol agents are threatening to leave the essential federal agency in large numbers if Vice President Kamala Harris wins in November, with several agents telling the New York Post that they cannot endure another four years of being undermined and scapegoated.
“I’m not doing this s–t again … four years of hell,” one agent, who isn’t anywhere close to retirement, told the outlet. Another added, “Lots of guys who can retire will go. If Trump wins, they’ll stay.”
On Monday, the Border Patrol union, National Border Patrol Council, offered a full-throated endorsement of the former president.
Insiders report that the Border Patrol has experienced significant turnover and a sharp decline in morale under the Biden-Harris administration.
The agency has lost more than 4,000 personnel since October 2020, leaving approximately 19,000 employees, according to the Washington Examiner.
Incentives such as raising recruitment bonuses from $10,000 to as much as $30,000 and encouraging retired agents to return have not been enough to close the gap.
Both Trump and Harris have committed to strengthening the Border Patrol, with the Republican nominee announcing on Sunday plans to increase the force by one-third, adding 10,000 new agents. However, multiple agents who spoke to The Post anonymously for fear of repercussions from their superiors indicated that if Harris is elected, she is likely to take office facing a significant staffing crisis at the agency.
“We will have another exodus just because we will have a bunch of 20-year agents saying ‘peace out,’” one agent told the outlet. He also believes that the more experienced agents, with five to 10 years on the job, who do much of the grunt work for the agency, will use their skills to find other jobs.
“Under this administration, they’ve done everything they could to make our job as inefficient as possible. They can’t outwardly tell us not to do our job, but when you’re watching criminals come in and get released it sucks,” another agent told The Post.
The declining morale has prompted the agency to hire its first suicidologist to address the rising suicide rate among Customs and Border Protection, which encompasses Border Patrol. In 2022, the agency reported a record 15 suicides, said The Post.
“The morale has never been as low in the Border Patrol, but under the Biden-Harris administration and her current ads, acting like she’s pro-border security is just putting salt on an already gaping wound for the morale of border Border Patrol agents and law enforcement,” former Yuma Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem previously told the outlet.
He added: “Kamala Harris has been bad for morale, for not only law enforcement around the country, but also for our border security personnel.”
Republicans have long insisted that the Biden-Harris regime could have curbed illegal crossings — which have numbered in the hundreds of thousands each month for most of their term — long ago, and the president proved their point a few months ago by putting new restrictions on asylum claims.
Illegal immigration has been a top campaign issue this year, so the restrictions were seen by critics of the administration as Biden doing what he could to improve Harris’ electability since she, as ‘border czar,’ had previously been unsuccessful at stemming the tide of humanity streaming into the country. In December 2023, more than 250,000 people crossed illegally into the U.S.; last month, that number had fallen to 54,000.
Paul Perez, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, said Sunday: “If we allow Border Czar Harris to win this election, every city, every community in this great country, is going to go to hell. The untold millions of people, unvetted, who she has allowed into this country that are committing murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries, and every other crime will continue to put our country in peril. Only one man can fix that and that is Donald J. Trump. He has always stood with the men and women who protect this border.”
He added: “On behalf of the 16,000 men and women represented by the National Border Patrol Council, we strongly support and endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States.”
