BORDER SECURITY - It is unusual when a government official gets fired for poor job performance. Not because they perform their job duties well. It’s because the bureaucracy protects them.
However, if an official’s boss is also performing poorly, that lower-level official often becomes the scapegoat.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Chris Magnus recently resigned from his position Saturday. Given how porous our nation’s southern border has become, this is long overdue.
Republicans had called for his resignation earlier month following complaints about his job performance, including that he fell asleep during meetings, which Politico reported. He initially refused, and nothing would have come of it.
However, border security has been an area where the Democrats had consistently been criticized. It has made the Biden Administration look bad all the way from President Joe Biden all the way town to Magnus look bad. And so the call came down that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Magnus to resign or face firing directly from Biden, according to what Magnus told the Los Angeles Times.
He initially resisted. He told the Los Angeles Times, “I expressed to him that I felt there was no justification for me to resign when I still cared deeply about the work I was doing.”
That resistance lasted a day before he submitted his resignation.
The action removes a weak link for the Biden Administration and makes them look like they are taking positive action.
And they are. Magnus was a problem, but he was also taking direction from the very people who forced him out. The Biden Administration is still in office and will continue taking actions that will weaken our border security. Magnus or his successor are simply tasked with carrying out those goals.
During his tenure as commissioner, illegal immigrant crossings along the southern border have reached record highs. The U.S. Border Patrol has been doing its job as best as it can. Agents arrested over 2.4 million illegal immigrants this fiscal year.
The problem is they are released with a promise to return for a hearing, and they disappear into the population. The Biden Administration has flown others to various cities within the United States. The program has grown so great that even Democrats are starting to admit it.
The United States has immigration laws to protect its citizens from a variety of problems unchecked immigration can cause. We are seeing some of those now. Municipalities overwhelmed trying to provide services to illegals, terrorists seeking a way into the country, and the introduction of diseases into the U.S. population.
For instance, the Biden Administration announced earlier this year it would end expulsions under Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act. The created a backlash from Congressional Democrats and Republicans. A federal district court has since issued a temporary injunction against rescinding the procedure, and the case currently being litigated.
It is long past the time we should be doing more of this. Demand the government enforce our immigration laws and provide Border Patrol agents with the means to do it. Let them protect us before the border crisis overwhelms us. If that happens, no one, including the Democrats, will benefit from the inflow of illegal immigrants.
(Michael A. Letts is the CEO and Founder of In-VestUSA, a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs.)
