Chris Magnus, the Biden administration’s top border official, has resigned after refusing the Department of Homeland Security secretary’s order to step down amid the worst border crisis in America’s history, the Washington Examiner has learned.
Magnus sent President Joe Biden a short letter Saturday thanking him for picking him to lead the nation’s largest law enforcement agency and resigning from his post.
TOP BIDEN BORDER OFFICIAL LOCKED OUT OF TWITTER ACCOUNT AFTER REFUSING TO RESIGN
“Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Senate-confirmed Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection over the past year. It has been a privilege and honor to be part of your administration,” Magnus wrote.
“I am submitting my resignation effective immediately but with you and your administration the very best going forward. Thank you again for this tremendous opportunity,” the letter stated.
Magnus, the former chief of police in Tucson, Arizona, was picked to run the 60,000-person CBP in 2021 and asked by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign or risk being fired.
Mayorkas told Magnus that he had lost confidence in his ability to perform his job, he wrote. Both Mayorkas and Tien said that if Magnus did not voluntarily leave, he could be the first political appointee in the Biden administration to be fired by the president.
The endangered commissioner said he planned to show up at work on Monday, writing in a letter to top staff just a day earlier: “I have no plans to resign as C.B.P. commissioner.”
Magnus disclosed in the Friday letter that CBP had already locked him out of his official Twitter account as CBP commissioner Friday.
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Magnus, 62, is the first gay commissioner of CBP.
