Trump to change Border Patrol leader to political appointee

As the incoming Trump administration prepares to install a political appointee to run the U.S. Border Patrol for the first time in the agency’s 100-year history, retiring chief Jason Owens said in an interview Friday that he hopes the top leader will remain a nonpartisan figure who has served in uniform.

“I don’t think that politics should get into the law enforcement arena, because we have to be impartial and focused on the mission no matter who is in charge,” Owens said.

President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to replace Owens with Mike Banks, a former Border Patrol agent who Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) appointed to run Operation Lone Star, the state’s border crackdown, the New York Post first reported Thursday. The move is a break with tradition at an agency whose somewhat insular culture is steeped in its history and protocol, and where mid-level officials often spend years in remote outposts near Canada and Mexico to earn promotions.

Owens, who had not been planning to retire yet, said he considers Banks “one of us” and a friend. “We’re lucky he’s a Border Patrol agent and knows what it’s like,” he said. “There’s no one else in the world who can understand or relate to what the men and women in the field doing the job go through every day.”

In an email Thursday, Owens told the Border Patrol’s nearly 20,000 agents and staff that he plans to remain until April 30. CBP officials say they aren’t sure when Banks will assume the top job since Border Patrol leadership has never been appointed by the White House.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called Banks “a great choice” by Trump.” Nobody understands the border better than Texans,” he wrote in a post on social media.

Owens, a 28-year veteran, remains widely respected across the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol, where he previously served as the head of its training academy. He was chief of the agency’s Del Rio sector in May 2022, when agents under his command responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 dead — a day Owens has described as “the darkest hours” of his life.

Owens’s wife, Cassy Garcia, a staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), ran for Congress as a Republican in South Texas and later served as a Trump appointee who worked on Hispanic business development. But Owens has steered clear of politics in his official roles. At a farewell event for DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, Owens presented the Biden appointee with the Border Patrol’s highest commendation for someone who is not in uniform.

“You left us better than you found us,” he said to Mayorkas at a ceremony with hundreds of attendees at DHS headquarters in Washington.

Owens said Mayorkas had shown commitment to the Border Patrol, inquiring about agents’ safety after the school shooting at Uvalde and attending the funerals of fallen officers and agents. When agents were angry and exhausted by the record influx on the border after Joe Biden took office, some turned their backs toward Mayorkas in a video that circulated on social media.

The DHS secretary told them: “You can turn your back on me, but I will never turn my back on you,” Owens recalled.

“I got to see him walk the walk after hearing him say those words,” Owens said. “No matter how much they may have been angry at him, he never stopped trying to do what was best.” Owens said Mayorkas has “taken actions behind the scenes that most people won’t see.”

In a statement to The Washington Post, Mayorkas praised Owens as someone who “has always stepped up and stepped in whenever the challenges have been greatest.”

“He rose through the ranks of the Border Patrol by virtue of his extraordinary leadership and his bravery, integrity, and decency,” Mayorkas said.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment about the decision to install a political appointee to run the Border Patrol. Rodney Scott, Trump’s pick for commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol, previously served as Border Patrol chief. The commissioner role requires Senate confirmation.

Border Patrol chief is a job traditionally reserved for senior officials within the agency. In 2014, Mark Morgan became the first leader from outside the Border Patrol when he was brought in by then-CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske to overhaul use-of-force policies. It was not a White House appointment, Kerlikowske said.

Owens said he has learned through his career that border security and immigration deserve to be treated differently. The former is achieved through effective law enforcement, he said, while the latter has to be managed by policy and regulation — the realm of politics.

Agents face the biggest challenge when the two intersect, he said.

“When a Border Patrol agent is faced with someone who is entering the country illegally, they don’t know if that person is an economic migrant or a refugee fleeing terrible situations, or if that person is a dangerous criminal or a sexual predator. They have to make a judgment in the moment, their judgment has to take into consideration both the humanitarian and the security factors of a nation,” Owens said.

“It is a tough and thankless job, but you don’t do it for yourself. You take on a role like this to give back,” he said. “We are charged with protecting the security of the greatest country on the planet, the place we all call home. Never lose sight of that in favor of politics.”

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• Maria Sacchetti contributed.