The number of suicides committed by Border Patrol agents in 2024 has neared the number set in 2023, with four months to go, the New York Post reported on Friday.
At least seven U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees ended their own lives in 2024; eight died last year by their own hand.
Kent Corso, CBP's former "suicidolgist" and behavior analyst, told the outlet that agents on the front line are witnesses to more of life's grim realities than the average citizen.
"Law enforcement officers see a ton of death. They experience loss," the psychologist said.
"First responders are exposed to many, many more potentially traumatic events than the general population, which, frankly, puts them at higher risk for suicide anyway — just all law enforcement," he said.
ABC News reported that there were eight suicides by CBP agents in 2020 and 11 in 2021.
"It would be inaccurate to sort of attribute it to one factor, but certainly a combination of factors, including things like a high operations tempo," Corso said.
"We've seen migration patterns that have never been seen before in history. So the whole nature of the world is changing, and that's certainly part of it," he said.
Border Patrol agents who spoke to the Post said that morale under the Biden administration has dropped precipitously.
"We find more dead bodies in one night than we used to find in a whole year, and nobody talks about it," one agent said. "I know seeing all these dead bodies is taking an effect on the agents.
"I know this past week there was a suicide in the patrol, and I can think of at least two others in the past month," the agent added. "When people ask me if I'm doing OK after finding another body, I usually just laugh and say I'm dead inside, just another day on the border.
"Sad, because that is kind of true. I don't really feel emotion anymore like I used to on stuff like that, which isn't really healthy," the agent told the Post.
Another agent told the outlet that agents have been reduced to "glorified Uber drivers and babysitters" and that lack of purpose can drive previously motivated agents to depression.
"Our jobs are meaningless. Some guys and gals live for this. Taking that identity away from them causes stress," the agent said.
On Friday it was reported that illegal border crossings over the U.S.-Mexico border decreased 33% in July as a result of the suspension of asylum, yet that still amounted to 56,408 arrests. Since President Joe Biden took office, there have been almost 10 million illegal border crossings into the U.S.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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