Mike Banks, the border patrol chief who oversaw the most aggressive militarization of the US southern border in recent history, has resigned with immediate effect.
“I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, most disastrous, most chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen.”.
Rodney Scott, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), commissioner, said: “We thank US Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks for his decades of service to this country and congratulate him on his second retirement after returning to serve during one of the most challenging periods for border security.
“During his time as chief, the border was transformed from chaos to the most secure border ever recorded.
Banks took over as border patrol chief in early 2025 and swiftly became central to the Trump administration’s controversial drive to reshape US immigration enforcement.
He oversaw a dramatic expansion of prosecutions for unlawful border crossings, intensified coordination between border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the rollout of broader interior enforcement operations across the country.
In an interview with Newsmax last November, Banks said border patrol agents would “go anywhere in the United States” to apprehend undocumented immigrants, and said that border patrol was helping ICE in 25 cities, while “adding more cities every day”. »
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