Border security commissioner says he refused resignation request from Homeland Security secretary

A clash between two top Homeland Security officials became public on Friday when U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asked for his resignation a day after the midterm elections.

Magnus said he refused.

“I want to make this clear: I have no plans to resign as CBP Commissioner,” Magnus said in a written statement. “I didn’t take this job as a résumé builder. I came to Washington, DC - moved my family here - because I care about this agency, its mission, and the goals of this Administration.”

DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Magnus, 62, is clashing with a Cabinet member less than a year after being confirmed by the Senate, mostly along party lines. A record number of apprehensions on the border have fueled Republican rhetoric over the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Republicans have argued that President Biden’s less-stringent policies - when compared with former president Donald Trump’s - have encouraged migrants to cross the border illegally. They have criticized both Mayorkas and Magnus.

Republicans criticized the Biden administration over the border in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterms, calling for Magnus’s resignation and threatening to impeach Mayorkas, who is scheduled to testify before a Senate committee next week.

Biden nominated Magnus in April 2021 to lead CBP, a massive agency with more than 60,000 border agents, customs officers and other employees who patrol the nation’s ports and borders and oversee billions of dollars in cross-border trade and travel. The Senate confirmed Magnus in December.

Magnus arrived with a reputation as a seasoned leader and reformer, and he became CBP’s first Senate-confirmed chief since 2019. He was also CBP’s first openly gay commissioner. He had served mostly in smaller law enforcement settings, as police chief in Fargo, N.D.; Richmond, Calif.; and Tucson, where he took over in 2016, and he has struggled to acclimate to CBP.

Sixteen House Republicans wrote Biden on Nov. 1, demanding that he call for Magnus’s resignation, citing a Politico report portraying him as an isolated, disengaged leader who sometimes nodded off during meetings. Magnus told the news outlet that he experienced spells of fatigue as a side effect of multiple sclerosis, a neurological condition he was diagnosed with 15 years ago, and adjusted his medication to address those effects.

But Magnus said in his statement Friday that he had much more to do at CBP.

“I haven’t been afraid to ask “why” things are done in certain ways and want to continue to do so,” he said. “In addition to focusing on Border [sic] security and critical issues associated with irregular immigration, I’m also committed to carrying out common-sense law enforcement reforms to improve the agency’s culture and our standing with the public - while still respecting and supporting our workforce as they carry out our important mission.”

Border Patrol agents have contended with a historic migration surge since Biden took office, and the 2.7 million border arrests last fiscal year, mostly at the Mexican border, were a record high.

Magnus promised during his confirmation hearing to take a nonpartisan approach to enforcing immigration laws and told senators in prepared testimony that he was a “pragmatic and bipartisan problem-solver.” Immigration is also personal, he said. His father was an immigrant from Norway, and his husband, Terrance Cheung, came to the United States from Hong Kong.

Magnus also acknowledged during his confirmation hearing the difficulties he’d face at CBP. Immigrant advocates constantly criticize the agency for allegedly abusing its authority, while the Border Patrol’s labor union openly supported the Trump administration’s more restrictive immigration policies and complained loudly when the Biden administration tried to rescind them.

CBP also struggled with internal resistance to taking coronavirus vaccines and suffered a rash of officer deaths.

Magnus told senators at his confirmation hearing that his goal was to enforce the laws in a “humane” and “conscientious” manner.

“More than a few colleagues, friends and family members have asked me, “What are you thinking?” Why would I choose to take on the important but challenging responsibility of leading CBP at this moment?” Magnus said at his confirmation hearing more than a year ago. “And here is my answer, which [is] the same answer I gave when I started my public safety career in 1979: I want to make a difference.”