2 weeks ago
Mike Banks, nan separator patrol main who oversaw nan astir fierce militarization of nan US confederate separator successful caller history, has resigned pinch contiguous effect.
“It’s conscionable time,” Banks told Fox News successful an interview. “I consciousness for illustration I sewage nan vessel backmost connected people from nan slightest secure, astir disastrous, astir chaotic separator to nan astir unafraid separator this state has ever seen.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not instantly respond to a petition for remark connected Banks’ abrupt exit.
The resignation comes weeks aft the Washington Examiner reported that six existent and erstwhile separator patrol labor had accused Banks of regularly paying for activity pinch prostitutes during trips to Colombia and Thailand complete much than a decade, and bragging astir it to colleagues.
The behaviour was said to person been investigated doubly by CBP officials, pinch 1 enquiry reportedly ending abruptly while erstwhile homeland information secretary, Kristi Noem, was successful office.
CBP described nan matter arsenic “closed” past month, pinch a spokesperson telling nan Examiner nan allegations “date backmost much than a decade and were reviewed years ago”.
The agency did not instantly respond to nan Guardian connected Thursday erstwhile asked for remark connected nan allegations.
Banks took complete arsenic separator patrol main successful early 2025 and swiftly became cardinal to nan Trump administration’s arguable thrust to reshape US immigration enforcement. He oversaw a melodramatic description of prosecutions for unlawful separator crossings, intensified coordination betwixt separator patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and nan rollout of broader interior enforcement operations crossed nan country.
Among that schedule was Banks’s domiciled successful launching alleged national defense areas on nan confederate border. Last April, nether his watch, nan management designated ample stretches of national onshore arsenic subject zones and transferred jurisdiction to nan US army. By mid-2025, nan zones covered astir a 3rd of nan full US-Mexico border, and were patrolled by astatine slightest 7,600 troops.
In an interview pinch Newsmax past November, Banks said separator patrol agents would “go anyplace successful nan United States” to apprehend undocumented immigrants, and said that separator patrol was helping ICE successful 25 cities, while “adding much cities each day”.
