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U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus resigned precocious Saturday, the White House said successful a abbreviated statement, ending an awkward standoff betwixt the country’s apical borderline authoritative and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Mayorkas asked Magnus to measurement down connected Wednesday but the CBP commissioner refused to spell quietly, insisting helium would not permission unless asked by the White House.
The White House said President Biden accepted Magnus’s resignation and appreciates his “nearly forty years of work and the contributions helium made to constabulary betterment during his tenure arsenic constabulary main successful 3 U.S. cities.”
In a connection to The Washington Post, Magnus said the determination “provides maine with the champion way for advancing my committedness to professional, innovative, and community-engaged policing.”
The White House besides published a transcript of a missive from Magnus thanking Biden for his accidental to service “over the past year.” But Magnus lasted conscionable 11 months successful the job. He was confirmed by the Senate past December successful a ballot mostly on enactment lines.
His abbreviated tenure is simply a stroke to the Biden medication arsenic it struggles to equilibrium migration pressures astatine the confederate borderline with calls from Democrats for meaningful changes astatine CBP, and particularly the Border Patrol.
During the Trump administration, the Border Patrol had the enthusiastic enactment of the president but was accused by migrant advocates of abusing its authorization and turning a unsighted oculus to racism and sexism among its ranks.
The labour national that represents Border Patrol agents cheered Donald Trump’s much restrictive migration policies, and became harshly captious of Biden aft helium began to rescind them.
Magnus, 62, was picked to pb the country’s largest instrumentality enforcement bureau aft gathering a estimation arsenic a starring instrumentality enforcement reformer during tenures arsenic constabulary main successful Fargo, N.D., Richmond, Calif. and Tucson. He was CBP’s archetypal openly cheery commissioner.
Yet Magnus’s ambitions to overhaul CBP enactment him astatine likelihood with Mayorkas and elder CBP leaders struggling to contend with grounds numbers of migrant arrests on the Mexico border.
Magnus said helium sought to marque changes to policies governing high-speed conveyance pursuits, unit overtime practices arsenic good arsenic CBP serviceman inspections of travelers’ cellphones astatine borderline crossings, among different betterment ideas. Those efforts were stymied, helium said.
“I didn’t instrumentality this occupation arsenic a resume builder. I came to Washington, D.C. — moved my household present — due to the fact that I attraction astir this agency, its mission, and the goals of this Administration,” Magnus said portion defying attempts to oust him.
Magnus said Mayorkas was much attuned to the needs of vocation officials coping with the strains astatine the border, and did not enactment his betterment ideas.
According to Magnus, tensions peaked Wednesday aft Magnus traveled to El Paso to be a gathering of the Border Patrol assemblage chiefs. Mayorkas had asked him not to go. Magnus said Mayorkas past asked for his resignation during a videoconference, telling Magnus that helium and CBP unit had mislaid assurance successful him and that Magnus had disobeyed him by traveling to El Paso.
Deputy CBP commissioner Troy Miller volition service arsenic the agency’s acting leader, Mayorkas said successful an email sent to CBP unit precocious Saturday. Miller ran CBP arsenic its interim person during overmuch of 2021.
Maria Sacchetti contributed to this report.
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