The president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), Brandon Judd, announced his retirement on Friday.
Judd served with the NBPC for over 15 years, and as president of the council for over 10 years. In a press release, NBPC said Judd’s retirement would take effect later this month on May 18.
“Brandon tirelessly served our members in the U.S. Border Patrol for many years, and we are excited that he is looking forward to pursuing future interests,” said NBPC. “We thank him for his service and wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
NBPC, a labor union dating back to 1967, represents about 16,500 Border Patrol agents and support staff.
Judd has been highly critical of President Joe Biden’s handling of the border, laying the blame for the ongoing and unrelenting crisis squarely on the Biden administration.
In one of his last on-air interviews last month, Judd pointed out that current border enforcement under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas doesn’t align with the federal law’s requirement of deportation.
“The law says if you do not have a legitimate claim to be in the United States, you shall be removed. That’s the word that’s used in the law: you shall be removed,” said Judd. “We’re not removing anybody.”
Judd pointed out that Mayorkas played word games in his impeachment hearing by claiming illegal immigrants were “set up for deportation proceedings.” In reality, Judd said, those illegal immigrants abscond and don’t adhere to those orders.
About 1.5 million illegal immigrants have failed to show up to their court-ordered appearances and were ordered deported in abstention — however, authorities aren’t tracking down those individuals for deportation proceedings under Mayorkas.
Judd said the cartels overwhelm certain sections of the border with the knowledge that Border Patrol has limited personnel, and then use the opened up areas of the border to transport their high-value contraband, such as fentanyl. Judd questioned why Mayorkas hasn’t implemented any stronger — and more feasible — security policies to thwart the cartels.
“This is how the cartels control certain sections of our border,” said Judd. “It’s a very dangerous situation that’s taking place, and we’re not doing anything.”
Judd also claimed that the Biden administration refuses to pass stronger border policies because it would create conflict with their voter base.
“He refuses to do it because the political litmus says he needs to rally his base behind him,” said Judd.
In March, Judd was invited to be Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s guest at the State of the Union address, though he opted not to attend in person. Judd called President Joe Biden’s speech a “slap in the face” in describing support for the border bill, clarifying that the union only supported it because it was better than nothing.
Judd supported former President Donald Trump’s border security plan. In a 2020 op-ed with Arizona Daily Independent, Judd attested that Trump had fixed the long-abused refugee and asylum systems, and had made real progress on building the border wall as promised.
Biden halted border wall construction and attempted to divert funds from the plan, but ultimately was forced to resume construction due to the funds having been appropriated by Congress for the border wall only.
The Biden administration began building a “moveable” border wall that both Border Patrol agents and border security supporters criticized as weak and ineffective.
Under Biden, NBPC estimates there have been an average of nearly 257,000 illegal immigrant encounters and 50,000 gotaways every month.
Per Border Patrol data, there have been over 7.7 million illegal immigrants encountered since Biden took office. October, November, December, January and February for this 2024 fiscal year set new all-time high records for encounters, with March reflecting a slight decline: 189,000 compared to 193,000.
As of this report, April’s border encounter totals have not been released.