WASHINGTON — The commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency responsible for border security, is refusing to resign from his post after a request from the Biden administration, a Department of Justice official said. Homeland Security at NBC News.
As head of CBP, Chris Magnus62, oversees more than 60,000 employees whose missions focus on counter-terrorism, border security and trade enforcement.
The Los Angeles Times was the first to break the news that Magnus had been asked to resign.
Magnus has held the position since December 2021 after being narrowly confirmed by the Senate in a mostly partisan 50-47 vote. He previously served as chief of police in Tucson, Arizona, from 2016 to 2020, stepping down after a civilian died while in police custody. Magnus also worked as a police chief in Richmond, CA and Fargo, ND Early in his law enforcement career, he also spent 15 years as a police officer in Lansing, Michigan.
The clash between the Biden administration and Magnus comes after a Political report released in October said five current administration officials “described him as uncommitted to his job, said he often did not attend White House meetings on the border situation, disparaged other agencies with colleagues and superiors, and had failed to build relationships within CBP and through other agencies to deal with the influx of migrants at the border.NBC News did not confirm the report. .
Biden and congressional Democrats have been inundated with criticism from Republicans, who have sought to make the influx of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border a major midterm issue.
Magnus blamed Republican governors in September for luring more migrants to the United States by promising them free bus rides north to places like New York, Washington, DC and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. He said in an interview that in some cases the governors of Texas, Arizona and Florida were “lying” to migrants about the opportunities that might await them in those cities and that it was “luring” others to come. in the USA.
In mid-September, NBC News reported that there was friction between White House Biden and senior DHS officials over how to handle immigration, as the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border continued to rise and Republican governors sent migrants to more Democratic cities.
