US Border Patrol has lost nearly a quarter of its ranks in the four years since President Joe Biden was elected, according to a report.
Just over 4,200 border agents have left the federal agency between October 2020 and April 2024, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday, citing new US Customs and Border Protection staffing data.
The depletion in the 19,000 agent workforce is down to a mix of those who quit, agents who hit mandatory retirement age, or ones who opted to retire as soon as they became eligible.
While the number of agents who quit has been steady — between 600 to 900 per year — for the last decade, the number of retirements has shifted under the Biden admin, the data shows.
Twice as many have opted to retire as soon as they reached the eligible age, compared to that of the Trump and Obama administrations.
The number of early retirements averaged roughly 257 per year between 2014 and 2020, the outlet reported. Since 2021, the average has come in at 529 agents.
The Biden adminstration has seen an unprecedented rush on the border with more than 7.6 million migrants apprehended on the US border since Biden took office in January 2021, according to CBP statistics.
Customs and Border Protection maintains its reduction in employee numbers has hovered between 4% and 6% — despite the doubling of early retirements in recent years.
Still, some agents claimed the data shows morale has been sinking.
“The administration is so bad for morale,” an unnamed Border Patrol official told the outlet.
“I’m not trying to be political. I’m just speaking facts. It’s become so political. Catch and release is demoralizing for agents.”
Earlier this week agents working on the US-Mexico border detailed how conditions are leading to a spiraling mental health crisis for them.
“We regularly see things that people should never see, like rotting human remains, abuse of every kind, babies and kids dying or dead,” one veteran Border Patrol agent, who didn’t want to be named, told The Free Press.
“Do you know what that does to you over time? You have to shut down a part of yourself to keep going.”
In April this year, an average of 6,000 migrants were encountered along the southern border daily. In December 2023, the average was just under 10,000 per day, per CBP figures.
