WASHINGTON – The Senate voted by the slimmest of margins this week to make Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus the next commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, confirming his appointment almost eight months after he was first nominated by President Joe Biden.
The 50-47 vote Tuesday came with just one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, joining 49 Democrats to approve the nomination. Despite the lopsided vote, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., welcomed what he called the bipartisan confirmation of Magnus to take over at a challenging time for the agency.
“Chris Magnus brings experience and understanding of Southern Arizona that will be important for his new role leading CBP as we continue working to secure the border, upgrade our ports of entry, and ensure a more orderly and humane process at the border that doesn’t fall on Arizona communities,” Kelly said in a prepared statement.
But critics called Magnus the “wrong man at the wrong time” for CBP, which reported a record 1.7 million migrant encounters at the southwest border in fiscal 2021.
Republicans in his Senate Finance Committee nomination hearing in October repeatedly tried to get Magnus to call the border situation a “crisis,” which he declined to do.
While he called the border situation “one of the most serious problems that we face right now,” Magnus said he wanted to spend time working to fix a broken system and “a little less time debating what the terminology is.”
GOP senators also pointed to a Magnus opinion piece in the New York Times in 2017 opposing a Trump administration proposal that would have withheld federal funding from immigration “sanctuary cities,” a move Magnus said then, and during his hearing, would threaten local public safety.
Magnus also came under fire for his criticism of then-President Donald Trump’s decision to send Department of Homeland Security officers into Portland, Oregon, to protect the federal courthouse there during the 2020 protests, a deployment that state and local officials had also opposed. None of those positions assuaged opponents of his nomination.
“As the Border Patrol is overwhelmed with record numbers of people crossing our border illegally – compounded by vast amounts of lethal drugs being smuggled into our country – the men and women who serve in that agency deserve a leader who will provide them with the proper support and resources they need to protect the American people,” said a statement from Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Chris Magnus is most assuredly not that guy.”
But Magnus also said at his hearing that requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for immigrants was reasonable, and that a border wall made sense in certain parts of the border if it was paired with necessary technology to secure the border.
He vowed to fight for agency funding. And he also pledged to work with senators and to make sure that “customs and trade aspect of the agency” do not get short shrift, working to stem drug trafficking and enforce trade laws, with a particular focus on halting the importation of goods made with forced labor.
Democrats on the committee, like Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., praised Magnus’ experience and his focus on the broad scope of the job, as well as his belief that “enforcing our immigration laws and treating people humanely are not mutually exclusive.”
Magnus has spent more than 40 years in public safety, and started as a police officer in his home state of Michigan before becoming chief in Fargo, North Dakota, and then in Richmond, California. He was named chief in Tucson in 2016.
Magnus resigned his Tucson job after the confirmation vote, and the Tucson City Council moved Tuesday to replace him with Deputy Chief Chad Kasmar.
Magnus leaves a department with about 1,100 employees to oversee the more than 60,000 workers in CBP, one of the largest agencies in the federal government.
But supporters like Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, said he is up to the job and welcomed his confirmation. Grijalva pointed to Magnus’ decades of law enforcement experience and his dedication to “more transparent, accountable, humane and evidence-based” policies for the agency.
“We entrust you to right a ship that steered off course under the previous administration, put an end to failed Trump-era border policies, and reshape the agency to reflect our values,” Grijalva tweeted Wednesday. “I look forward to continue our shared work to ensure that our communities along the border in Arizona and across the country remain safe, welcoming and prosperous.”
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2021.
Good riddance – kicked upstairs.
Perhaps now TPD will start enforcing laws?
Open border entrants killing Americans. he is not and has not been up to the job.
Tucson murder rate top ten in the US. Even ABC had to admit it.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/12-major-us-cities-top-annual-homicide-records/story?id=81466453
So he is promoted? Good Lord America, are you deaf, dumb and blind?
Grijalva and Kelly think you are.
The two biggest challenges Chris Magnus will face in his new position are:
— Too many people in government, the media and the public think the United States should be an autocratic police state with a treasonous, narcissistic, pathological liar as the supreme leader.
— Overseeing an organization with too many members that see themselves as the enforcement arm of an autocratic police state that should be run by a martinet subservient to a treasonous narcissistic pathological liar.
There is a reason that the Border Patrol agent on horseback trying to lasso the fleeing Haitian refugee has not been dealt with — due process for too many in this country is a long rope and a short drop from a hangin’ tree.
Another very confused person. The Border Patrol did not try to lassso a fleeing Haitian refugee. You seem to be fixated on an inaccurate news source because that was proven false the very next day. CNN accused them of trying to whip them, but horse handlers for BP explained that is how horses are trained to move side to side. It had nothing to do with the criminal alien fleeing law enforcement.
The biggest problem for the former Chief to overcome will be the onslaught from the public outcry for his failed policies. You see he supports BLM. And BLM is working to abolish law enforcement in America.
Is that what you stand for?
https://blacklivesmatter.com/statement-regarding-the-ongoing-trial-of-jussie-smollett/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=UmTnrOHAIdtEKFOuALfvHd06dPPghMhBvoPNOk2pMU0-1639171754-0-gaNycGzNCKU
Turns out BLM doesn’t like liars. But they like Jussie.
Forgive me, I should have watched Faux Gnus because its use of year-old file footage presented as current events to match the narrative is more reliable?
Just like its coverage of the Christmas Tree vandalism that was more akin to talking about the New York Twin Towers on 9/11. It wasn’t even a real tree, but a fake construction to mimic a real tree, which is all you need to know about that 24/7 propaganda and infotainment source.
By the way, I know the Border Patrol agent was not actually trying to lasso the Haitian refugee. That would require a real lasso in his hands as opposed to long reins, but that does not mean he was not thinking about it. Ive seen enough working cowboys to know better.
Now you can judge thoughts? Should we start jailing citizens because you can read their thoughts?
“There is a reason that the Border Patrol agent on horseback trying to lasso the fleeing Haitian refugee …”
Your words not mine. Now which is it?
What Christmas tree are you talking about?
Good for Tucson; bad for the country.
VP Harris is coming through with her efforts to secure our border by convincing US companies to invest in the guilty countries. Once we back it up with some federal tax dollars everyone (but the drug runners and murderers) will stay at home and get jobs.
Looks like a 100 year plan.
Former TPD Chief Magness leaves Tucson with the seventh highest homicide rate in the country. Why were we not told this? What has the Mayor done about it? How about Council members in the highest murder rate wards? My folks used to say “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.”
Has this happened because of their “soft on crime” approach to law enforcement? It’s killing our friends and neighbors.