WASHINGTON — The commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Safety, the federal company in control of border safety, is refusing to step down from his job after a request by the Biden administration, an official from the Division of Homeland Safety advised NBC Information.
As the pinnacle of CBP, Chris Magnus, 62, oversees greater than 60,000 staff whose missions concentrate on counterterrorism, border safety and commerce enforcement.
The Los Angeles Times was first to report the information that Magnus was requested to resign.
Magnus has served within the function since Dec. 2021 after being narrowly confirmed by the Senate in a 50-47 principally party-line vote. He had beforehand served as chief of police in Tucson, Ariz., from 2016 to 2020, resigning after a civilian died whereas in police custody. Magnus has additionally labored as police chief in Richmond, Calif., and in Fargo, N.D. Early on in his legislation enforcement profession, he additionally spent 15 years as a police officer in Lansing, Mich.
The conflict between the Biden administration and Magnus comes after a Politico report revealed in October stated 5 present administration officers “portrayed him as unengaged in his job, saying he usually doesn’t attend White Home conferences on the state of affairs on the border, badmouths different companies to colleagues and superiors, and has not constructed relationships inside CBP and throughout different companies to handle the inflow of migrants on the border.” NBC Information has not confirmed the report.
Biden and congressional Democrats have been inundated with criticism from Republicans, who sought to make the inflow of migrants coming throughout the U.S.-Mexico border a serious situation in the course of the midterms.
Magnus blamed Republican governors in September for drawing extra migrants to the U.S. by promising them free bus rides north to locations like New York, Washington, D.C., and Martha’s Winery, Massachusetts. He stated in an interview that in some circumstances, the governors of Texas, Arizona and Florida had been “mendacity” to migrants about what alternatives would possibly await them in these cities and that it’s “luring” others to return to the U.S.
In mid-September, NBC Information reported there was friction between the Biden White Home and senior DHS officers over methods to deal with immigration, as the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border kept rising and Republican governors despatched migrants to extra Democratic-run cities.
