Since 2020, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has seen a “skyrocketing” fee of suicide amongst its brokers. In 2022, the latest yr for which CBP launched knowledge, there have been 14 suicides amongst Border Patrol brokers, practically triple the variety of suicides CBP reported in 2014 and practically double the quantity reported in 2020.
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The rise within the fee is because of each a rise in unlawful border crossings — which have risen to greater than 8.1 million since Biden’s time period started in 2021 — in addition to an total sense of “abandonment” by the Biden administration.
One more reason for the suicide fee is grotesque killings by human traffickers on the border. It’s not unusual for CBP brokers to search out human stays, useless or dying kids, and “abuses of every kind” perpetrated by human traffickers and smugglers.
CBP maintains an lively suicide prevention program and supplies free confidential counseling to all CBP staff and their households coated by their Worker Help Program (EAP). Those that enroll in this system, nonetheless, are reassigned to desk jobs, face pay cuts and are positioned below the identical protocols as brokers below disciplinary motion. Different forces securing the border have additionally skilled suicides in recent times, with the Texas Navy Division reporting that two Nationwide Guardsmen died by suicide in 2021.
