The Biden administration announced in September that all federal workers must be fully vaccinated by Nov. 22 or face termination. All agents had to register their vaccination status in an internal database portal, where they also could request an exemption on one of several grounds.
Seventy-nine percent of the Border Patrol’s 21,393 employees were vaccinated as of Nov. 17, Fox News reported.
A senior official at Customs and Border Protection recently said that "counseling letters" have been sent to employees who rejected getting the vaccine, which puts them "on notice."
A group of 62 Republicans oppose the mandate and are demanding Biden keep the agents in their jobs, according to Fox News.
A Border Patrol agent and NRA life member says he wants to meet with President Joe Biden to show him how the vaccine mandate for Border Patrol agents will weaken national security if the agents are fired, according to Fox News.
"The federal government is demanding that I either undergo a force vaccination or lose their livelihood that puts food on my family's table. That's my so-called choice. But this isn't just about me. The border crisis is worse than you can imagine. And if hundreds, even thousands of Border Patrol agents are terminated, it will impact every single American, including my own family here in the Rio Grande Valley," 13-year Border Patrol agent Roy Cantu said in a video published by the NRA.
Cantu called the mandate a "political stunt" and said if the border is not secure, "every state" is at risk of becoming "a border state with illegal immigrants committing violent crimes."
"Mr. President, with all due respect, you've never been to the border. If you truly respect the work the Border Patrol does for this country, I humbly request that you agree to sit down and meet with me. So I can show you just how bad the situation is and explain why terminating agents will be a disaster for national security," Cantu says in the video.
"It's your responsibility to protect yourself and your family. Utilize your Second Amendment," Cantu says.
The U.S. Border Patrol reported more than 1.6 million encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2021 fiscal year, more than quadruple the number of the prior fiscal year and the highest annual total on record, according to Pew Research Center. Migrant encounters refer to two distinct kinds of events: expulsions, in which migrants are immediately expelled to their home country or last country of transit, and apprehensions, in which migrants are detained in the United States, at least temporarily.
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