US Border Patrol chief Michael Banks resigns

Mike Banks, the chief of U.S. Border Patrol who oversaw the most aggressive militarization of the southern border in recent years, has resigned with immediate effect.

His departure comes weeks after the Washington Examiner reported that six current and former Border Patrol employees accused him of regularly paying for sex with prostitutes during trips to Colombia and Thailand over more than a decade and bragging about it to colleagues.

The allegations were investigated twice by Customs and Border Protection officials, with one inquiry reportedly ending abruptly while former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in office. CBP later described the matter as closed.

Banks took over as chief in early 2025 and played a central role in expanding prosecutions for unlawful border crossings, intensifying coordination with ICE, and designating large stretches of federal land as military zones. By mid-2025, those zones covered nearly a third of the U.S.-Mexico border and were patrolled by at least 7,600 troops.

His resignation marks the latest in a string of exits by senior Trump immigration officials. Kristi Noem was fired in March, and Gregory Bovino, who led the controversial Minneapolis crackdown, was demoted before retiring earlier this year.

In his farewell interview, Banks claimed he had transformed the border from “the least secure, most disastrous” to “the most secure border this country has ever seen.” He had previously stated that Border Patrol agents would “go anywhere in the United States” to apprehend undocumented immigrants.