Federal law enforcement agents of the United States Border Patrol lamented how politicians in Washington killed a major border security deal without even considering it, leaving embattled agents to fend for themselves.
Congress, and particularly Republicans, have failed Border Patrol yet again by refusing to come to the table and negotiate over the Ukraine-Israel supplemental funding package, according to agents who are not authorized to speak with media but spoke with the Washington Examiner on the condition of anonymity.
“As an agent guarding the border, I feel devastated and demoralized to see that the main agency (USBP) that deals with illegal immigrants is being set on the back burner and ultimately being forced to fend for itself,” said the first agent, who has done the job for nearly two decades.
“I am a registered Republican but it seems that most of the (R) politicians nowadays are just sheep in wolves clothing. All talk no action,” the same agent wrote in a text message. “Leaving a soldier in the middle of an ambush just to make a statement would be the equivalent to what’s happening to Border Patrol agents.”
A second agent in Arizona said the Senate’s proposal, which was worked out by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), James Lankford (R-OK), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), would have been a “great fix to a long broken system,” but lamented that Congress and the White House were three years late to the addressing the border crisis.
“It’s a great change, but too little too late would be a huge understatement,” said the agent.
The National Border Patrol Council, which represents employees who are not in management, had endorsed the Senate deal, which caused some confusion among agents given House Republicans’ knee-jerk opposition to the proposal.
Following the Senate’s dismissal of the deal as part of Ukraine-Israel funding earlier this week, union president Brandon Judd said he was “disappointed” that the deal was dumped before it was given a chance after being made public a week earlier.
“We need something done. Obviously, we continue to break records,” Judd said. “We just want to see something get done that will give us the tools necessary to secure the border.
The plan would have dramatically increased funding for the detention of and deportation of illegal immigrants; sped up the processing of asylum claims to prevent immigrants from being released into the country and never removed; banned anyone from seeking asylum on days when illegal immigrant arrests were high; and funded more border wall projects.
But as soon as the bill was released, mostly House Republicans issued statements disapproving of the bill at the recommendation of 2024 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Some Border Patrol agents said they were initially confused about the bill’s provisions, given GOP opposition to it but the union’s support for it.
“Our union supported it, but most of us agents think it is garbage,” said a third agent, who is based in Arizona. “If the aliens are not going to show up to court in 6 – 10 years from now, they most certainly will not show up in 6 months,” the agent said about the proposal’s plan to shorten asylum proceedings.
A fourth agent in West Texas said he was “grateful it didn’t pass” based on how he saw it characterized in public.
“More money isn’t the answer. The only thing that needs to happen is to enforce the current laws that are not being enforced, simple solution,” said the fourth agent. “I believe the negative press coming out of Chicago and New York gave Democrats an opportunity to wrap our border security with funding to Ukraine, which is ridiculous.”
A fifth agent in California said Border Patrol ought to be able to return to forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico through court proceedings, as was policy under Trump.
“From what I’m hearing from other agents is that bill was horrible to begin with,” said the agent. “We need Remain in Mexico to come back to deal with all the fraudulent asylum claims. No amount of money will fix this, but a change in policy will.”
Judd pushed back.
“You have to read the bill. Obviously, you can’t just listen to one side or the other,” Judd said. “The vast majority of the agents — once they read the bill, they understood what was happening, all the good that was in it.”
An Arizona agent in management said he came to see the benefits in the bill but agreed with agents’ general frustrations that lawmakers in Washington have failed to do anything to address the crisis aside from passing short-term funding bills.
“I’ve been reading the bill Sinema has been working on,” said the sixth agent. “It seems like a much better direction than where we are right now.
“I’m just not sure how it will be implemented,” the same agent continued. “What will we do with the people, Mauritanians, for example, that their own country refuses to accept them back?”
A seventh agent, a senior agent in southeast Texas, said, “All faces of immigration need to be funded,” including ICE, the Justice Department’s immigration courts, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and all aspects of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol.
An eighth agent based in the Del Rio Sector in south-central Texas noted that Congress has continued to approve extra funding for the Department of Homeland Security that goes toward opening and continuing operations at massive tent facilities in order to detain more immigrants and quickly process then release them into the U.S. One DHS budget report in 2023 concluded that it spent nearly $991 million to fund five of the facilities for six months the previous year.
“There goes our new [vehicles], new station, new equipment. For a station of 200+ agents, we are only getting 19 new units. And they have to be divided amongst three shifts,” the sixth agent said, adding that the number of night vision goggles, mobile surveillance systems, and thermal image binoculars were already severely limited in quantity.
The fifth agent, a Californian, added that Congress needs to fund ICE so that more immigrants can be detained and removed if new or existing immigration policies can be effectively put into place.
“Up until now, all we have done is spent money on more tent facilities, given more money to nonprofit governmental organizations, sent northern border agents to help, pulled from the agencies to assist,” the fifth agent said. “Meanwhile, we have done nothing to actually stop the flow of entries coming across the border. Just as this situation slowly got worse over time, if we change policy now, then it will slowly get better. But I don’t see the current administration making any effort to change. They created the problem, some would say purposely.”
A ninth agent with more than 20 years in the Patrol said Sinema’s floor speech last week, in which she delivered an emotional plea and told lawmakers “shame” for not giving the bipartisan border deal consideration, channeled the Border Patrol’s sentiment.
“She makes valid points,” said the eighth agent.
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Judd has not had any conversations with Congress about what next steps, but maintained that policies must be addressed instead of just throwing money at it.
“Throwing money at a problem when you have bad policy is just wasting taxpayer dollars. Everything has to start with policy,” Judd said. “Once you have the policy, then you can evaluate and decide where you need to put your money, but until you have that policy, it really doesn’t matter.”