US Border Patrol chief Michael Banks is resigning, in latest DHS
leadership change
[May 15, 2026]
By GISELA SALOMON
The head of U.S. Border Patrol, the agency tasked with securing the
nation's frontiers and increasingly tapped by the Trump administration
for immigration operations in American cities, announced his resignation
Thursday.
Michael Banks' decision, announced in a Fox News interview and later
confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security, is the latest
leadership shake-up of officials implementing President Donald Trump's
immigration crackdown and comes as the Republican administration appears
to be recalibrating its approach to its centerpiece policy of mass
deportations.
“It’s just time,” Banks was quoted as saying in a report on the Fox News
website, which said the resignation was effective immediately. “I feel
like I got the ship back on course," he said, referring to what he
described as previous chaos at the southern border. Banks said it was
“time to enjoy the family and life."
In a statement, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner,
Rodney Scott, thanked Banks for his service “during one of the most
challenging periods for border security.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was not clear who will replace Banks. He led an agency at the
forefront of Trump's high-profile immigration enforcement efforts but
kept a lower profile than some other officials such as Gregory Bovino, a
now-retired commander who became a public face of the immigration
crackdown.
Border Patrol participated in immigration enforcement operation in US
cities
CBP is one of the federal agencies that participated since last year in
a series of immigration enforcement operations, carried out primarily in
cities governed by Democrats — an effort that triggered a spike in
arrests and led to the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in
Minneapolis this year at the hands of federal immigration officers.
Banks' resignation takes place two months after Markwayne Mullin, a
former Republican senator from Oklahoma, became homeland security
secretary. DHS oversees CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, commonly known as ICE.
Banks is stepping down at the same time that ICE is also going through a
leadership transition. Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, is leaving
later this month and will be replaced by David Venturella, who worked
for years for private contractors before returning to government
service.
CBP was established in 2003 and handles customs, immigration, and
agricultural regulations to secure U.S. borders. It has a workforce of
over 20,000 agents assigned to patrol the more than 6,000 miles of land
borders, and an operating budget of $1.4 billion, according to
information from its website.
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Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks speaks to reporters during the
visit to the US-Mexico border by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in
Sunland Park, N.M., Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)
As head of CBP, Banks became a pivotal figure in the Trump
administration’s hardline policy to reconfigure immigration law
enforcement in the United States. He oversaw the expansion of
prosecutions for illegal border crossings, intensified coordination
between the Border Patrol and ICE, and supervised the implementation
of broader internal enforcement operations within the country’s
borders.
Banks had a long career at Border Patrol
Banks returned to the Border Patrol last year after a long agency
career that had never landed him in its senior ranks. His star had
risen as border czar to Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, during a period
when illegal crossings reached record highs and the state launched a
multibillion-dollar enforcement surge that led to turf battles with
the Biden administration.
Banks kept a relatively low public profile as arrests for illegal
crossings that have plunged to their lowest levels since the
mid-1960s, a trend that began toward the end of that Democratic
administration.
Banks did not appear publicly at the Border Security Expo this month
in Phoenix, an annual conference at which government officials
update contractors on the state of the border. Scott, who was Banks’
supervisor, is a close ally of Trump border czar Tom Homan and has
acted more as the agency’s public face.
Banks, who grew up in a small town in Warner Robins, about 100 miles
(160 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta, Georgia, has said his first
job was picking peaches at an orchard when he was 14 years old. He
worked with migrant farm workers and learned “compassion and
humility,” he said, in an interview published last year on the CBP
website.
Banks, in the interview, said he was “honored” to have returned to
the agency.
“The United States Border Patrol will be unapologetic in its
enforcement of our nation’s laws,” he said.
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Elliot Spagat in San Diego, California contributed to this report.
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