“I am submitting my resignation effective immediately but wish you and your administration the very best going forward,” Magnus added. “Thank you again for this tremendous opportunity.”
Magnus told the Los Angeles Times on Friday that he had been asked by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to step down but refused. He said access to his official Twitter account had been blocked.
Magnus told the newspaper that on Wednesday Mayorkas said that he had lost confidence in the commissioner and would recommend his firing to Biden if Magnus did not resign. Magnus added that the following day Deputy Homeland Security Secretary John Tien told Magnus that he should resign or that he would be fired within the next few days, according to the 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 and felt that that work was focused on the things I was hired to do in the first place,” Magnus said.
Magnus said that Mayorkas met with him after Magnus decided to not continue a retention bonus for Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz because Ortiz was not in favor of Magnus’ reforms at CBP. Magnus also said that Mayorkas had told him to not attend a Tuesday meeting of Border Patrol chiefs in El Paso, which the commissioner ended up attending.
The Times cited an unnamed administration official as saying that Magnus was regularly absent from meetings on border policy while another described him as “missing in action” on immigration.
DHS has not yet issued a statement on Magnus’ resignation.
Last December, Magnus became the first confirmed CBP commissioner since 2019 by a Senate vote of 50-47.
CBP’s previous Senate-confirmed commissioner, Kevin McAleenan, assumed the duties of acting Homeland Security secretary and then resigned that fall. John Sanders only served in the acting commissioner role for fewer than three months before Mark Morgan was moved into the acting commissioner post and served in that capacity until the end of the Trump administration.
Troy Miller, who served as director of field operations for CBP’s New York Field Office, had served as acting commissioner from the outset of the Biden administration. He is currently deputy commissioner.
Magnus resigned as chief of police in Tucson, Ariz., to take the CBP job. He previously served as chief of police in Fargo, N.D., and Richmond, Calif.
