US border patrol chief resigns after claims of sex with prostitutes abroad | US news
Mike Banks, the border patrol chief who oversaw the most aggressive militarization in recent history on the U.S. southern border, has resigned, effective immediately.
“It’s about time,” Banks said he told Fox News in an interview. “I feel like I’ve steered the ship back on course from the least safe, most disastrous, most chaotic border to the safest border this country has ever seen.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Banks’ sudden exit.
The resignation came weeks later The Washington Examiner reported He said six current and former border patrol employees accused Banks of regularly paying for sex with prostitutes during trips to Colombia and Thailand for more than a decade and bragging about it to colleagues.
The conduct was said to have been investigated twice by CBP officials; An investigation reportedly ended abruptly while former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in office.
CBP last month described the matter as “closed,” and a spokesperson told the Inspector General that the allegations “go back more than a decade and were reviewed years ago.”
The agency did not immediately respond to the Guardian when asked to comment on the allegations on Thursday.
Banks took over as border patrol chief in early 2025 and quickly became the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s controversial attempt to reshape U.S. immigration enforcement. He oversaw a dramatic expansion of investigations into illegal border crossings, an intensification of coordination between Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the launch of broader domestic enforcement operations across the country.
Among these agendas, banks’ so-called national defense areas along the southern border. Last April, under his watch, the administration designated a large swath of federal lands as a military zone and turned jurisdiction over to the U.S. military. By mid-2025, the zones covered nearly a third of the U.S.-Mexico border and were patrolled by at least 7,600 troops.
One Interview with Newsmax Last November, Banks said border patrol agents would “go anywhere in the United States” to apprehend undocumented immigrants and that the border patrol was assisting ICE in 25 cities and “adding more cities every day.”
