The US Border Patrol has witnessed a significant decrease in its workforce, with nearly a quarter of its agents leaving the agency in the four years since President Joe Biden took office. Between October 2020 and April 2024, over 4,200 border agents have departed from the federal agency, as reported by the Washington Examiner, citing new US Customs and Border Protection staffing data. The decrease in the 19,000 agent workforce is attributed to a combination of agents who quit, reached mandatory retirement age, or chose to retire as soon as they became eligible.
While the number of agents quitting has remained steady at between 600 to 900 per year over the past decade, there has been a shift in the number of retirements under the Biden administration. Twice as many agents have opted to retire as soon as they reached the eligible age compared to the Trump and Obama administrations. The average number of early retirements was around 257 per year between 2014 and 2020, but since 2021, this number has doubled to 529 agents annually.
The Biden administration has faced a surge at the border, with over 7.6 million migrants apprehended on the US border since Biden took office in January 2021, according to CBP statistics. Despite the increase in early retirements, Customs and Border Protection maintains that the reduction in employee numbers has been between 4% and 6%. However, some agents believe that morale within the agency has been declining due to political influences and the practice of catch and release, which they find demoralizing.
The challenging conditions at the US-Mexico border are leading to a mental health crisis among Border Patrol agents, according to reports. Agents often encounter traumatic situations, such as finding human remains, witnessing various abuses, and seeing deceased or dying children, which take a toll on their mental well-being over time. Many agents feel the need to shut down a part of themselves in order to cope with these distressing experiences. In April of this year, an average of 6,000 migrants were encountered along the southern border daily, while in December 2023, this number was just under 10,000 per day, based on CBP figures.
