EXCLUSIVE — AUSTIN, Texas — Thousands of immigrants who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso this past week have forced the Border Patrol to halt all mental health, physical health, and firearm training to ensure all employee time is spent transporting and processing people, the Washington Examiner has learned.
An email sent to division chiefs across West Texas and New Mexico, verified by two sector officials and a supervisor, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that El Paso Sector Chief Anthony “Scott” Good made the decision to halt operational requirements for the more than 2,000 regional agents due to an “unprecedented” situation at the border.
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“Due to the unprecedented migrant surge and the current operational environment, effective Sunday, September 24, 2023, Firearms Qualifications, Use of Force Training, Suicide Awareness Training, Honor Guard and Recruiting events, and the participation of the Physical Fitness Program (PFP) will be temporarily paused throughout El Paso Sector (EPT) for a minimum of two weeks due to operational requirements,” the email to division chiefs stated. The email was sent late last week.
Agents must be firearm recertified every quarter and trained outside normal shifts to respond to dangerous situations. Those trainings, as well as regional agent-staffed hiring events and Honor Guard protocols carried out by a unit of volunteers at memorial services of employees who die in the line of duty, are on hold.
“We do firearms and defense tactics on a regular basis,” said one official who spoke with the Washington Examiner. “We are very well-trained. To be placed on standby for a little while is no biggie.”
The biggest impact on agents and concern was suspending the suicide awareness training, which agents are required to attend by the Department of Homeland Security, and the workout program.
The suicide prevention initiative is about “giving agents different ways to become resilient in life with situations,” one official who spoke with the Washington Examiner said.
The suicide training goes through a curriculum that hits on the importance of gratitude; value-based living; capitalizing on strengths; reframing, balancing your thinking; mindfulness; spiritual resilience; physical resilience; interpersonal problem solving; and celebrating good news.
Its pause comes at a time when work conditions are high.
To make the situation worse, agents will no longer have an hour each shift to spend doing physical fitness and will be required to do it on their own time.
“It gave agents an opportunity to work out during the shift to take care of themselves,” the third employee said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency that oversees the Border Patrol, said apprehensions of illegal immigrants have begun to decline but declined to comment on the email.
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In September, the average daily apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the El Paso region was 1,276 people, according to CBP data shared with the Washington Examiner.
That figure, CBP noted, was around half of the 2,700 daily apprehensions that Border Patrol agents made one day last October, which was the highest on record. As of Thursday, more than 7,000 people had been processed and were still in Border Patrol custody in El Paso.
