Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson, was confirmed as the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection by the Senate on Tuesday.
Chris Magnus was nominated to be the next US Customs and Border Protection. The photo was taken by Rod LAMKEY/POOL/Agence France-Presse.
The pool is via a photo.
The Senate voted 50-47 to confirm Magnus, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) crossing party lines to vote in favor.
In the fiscal year that ended in September, the U.S. Border Patrol made the most arrests in a single year at 1.66 million. The number of apprehensions has increased partly because recidivism rates are up. The Biden Administration is restarting the "Remain in Mexico" program, which requires many non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their immigration court hearings, despite the fact that Biden ended the policy earlier this year.
Magnus became a celebrity when he held up a Black Lives Matter poster at a protest after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. He has spoken out against former President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for their stance on sanctuary cities. Magnus wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times that Latino members of his community felt a "growing sense of fear and distrust" due to the anti-immigration rhetoric coming from Mr. Trump and Attorney.
