U.S. Border Patrol agents are blaming President Joe Biden for creating the lowest level of morale ever experienced among their colleagues, the Washington Examiner reported Monday.
"Under Biden, things are the worst they have ever been by far," one Arizona-based agent told the Examiner.
"Agents are calling in all the time. You always hear, 'It doesn't matter,' or, 'What's the point?' in reference to doing our job. Agents are afraid of ending up on the news for doing their job or getting in trouble for doing their job. There is no morale."
The Examiner spoke with eight Border Patrol agents and managers assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border about their experiences during a record migration event under Biden.
The biggest factor in the patrol's demoralization, according to those interviewed, is the feeling that Biden has demonized agents for enforcing immigration laws that Congress passed.
Besides that, Biden was quick to condemn Border Patrol agents last September over reports that a mounted agent allegedly "whipped" a Haitian migrant in Del Rio, Texas, but he has yet to thank agency members who helped end the recent Uvalde, Texas, school massacre. A border patrol officer who ended up killing the gunman has yet to be identified publicly.
"Del Rio pissed us all off," one agent told the Examiner. "Uvalde just adds to it. I think at this point, we are beyond pissed. We expect Biden to continue to attack us. Making a concerted effort to ignore what we did is expected."
A published report in April said the Department of Homeland Security would clear the Del Rio sector horse patrol unit agents of any wrongdoing. However, the lack of a conclusion in the investigation has been a "major morale killer," another agent said.
"All they have done is basically stomped on us from the get-go. And they've condemned us on every turn," one agent told the Examiner. "People are pretty much fed up with how this administration is treating Border Patrol agents because all we've been doing this whole time is what they've told us to do, which is really bad policy."
More than 2 million migrants were stopped while attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico illegally in the calendar year 2021. Nearly 800,000 were released into the U.S., the Examiner said.
Another agent told the Examiner his work sometimes was a source of guilt because "it feels like we're committing a crime by allowing all these people into our country."
The current situation is not the first time Biden has contributed to a decrease in morale among Border Patrol agents.
"When I joined under the Bush administration, my morale was an all-time high, and so were my peers," one Texas-based agent told the Examiner. "We did our job. Then Obama/Biden came around.
"The morale sunk due to that administration's policies, but we were still able to somehow do our jobs."
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