Border Patrol agents have threatened to leave the agency if Kamala Harris becomes president.
One agent told The New York Post, “Lots of guys who can retire will go. If Trump wins, they’ll stay.”
“We will have another exodus just because we will have a bunch of 20-year agents saying peace out,” another agent said.
The threat comes as the Border Patrol Union endorsed former President Donald Trump, saying, “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.”
Between October 2020 and April 2024, more than 4,000 agents left the Border Patrol, The Washington Examiner reported. In the years prior to Biden’s presidency, the agency lost an average of 996 agents each year.
A senior Border Patrol official told the outlet, “The administration is so bad for morale. I’m not trying to be political. I’m just speaking facts. It’s become so political. Catch and release is demoralizing for agents.”
Suicide rates have also increased among Border Patrol agents. In 2022, 15 CBP agents committed suicide, almost double the number from before Biden became president.
“We all knew under this administration there’d be a change,” retired chief border agent of Yuma, Arizona, Chris Clem, told the Free Press. “We expect that every time there’s a political change. But when it turned out that the job became nothing more than processing and releasing these people, that was very hard to take.”
