Border Patrol Agent Suicides Have Almost Surpassed 2023 Total
The number of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) workers who committed suicide in 2024 has almost eclipsed the total number of CBP agents who committed suicide in 2023, according to a report from the New York Post.
Seven CBP employees reportedly committed suicide this year, just one less than in 2023, per CBP’s former “suicidologist” Dr. Kento Corso. There were eight suicides in 2020 and 11 in 2021, per ABC News’ report. The worst year for CBP was 2022 when 15 employees took their own lives, Corso reported.
Corso attributed this spike in suicides was due, in part, to excessive work stress.
“Law enforcement officers see a ton of deaths, they experience loss,” Corso said. “First responders are exposed to many, many more potentially traumatic events than the general population, which frankly puts them at higher risk for suicide anyway, just all law enforcement.”
“It would be inaccurate to sort of attribute it to one factor, but certainly a combination of factors, including things like a high operations tempo,” Corso continued. “We’ve seen migration patterns that have never been seen before in history. So the whole nature of the world is changing, and that’s certainly part of it.”
One-third of the CBP workforce is Border Patrol agents, many of whom told the Post that morale and mental health have tanked under the current federal administration.
CBP has encountered nearly 2.6 million illegal immigrants in the fiscal year to date, according to the nationwide US CBP data. In 2023, there were 3.2 million encounters with 2 million of those encounters being single adults. That was a massive spike in comparison to the 2.76 million seen in fiscal year 2022.
Border Patrol agents lamented to the Post that the unit used to be focused on deterring crossings, but under the current administration, Border Patrol agents consider themselves “glorified Uber drivers and babysitters.”
“Our jobs are meaningless. Some guys and gals live for this,” one agent said. “Taking that identity away from them causes stress.”
Former Yuma Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem echoed this sentiment and claimed that the administration is vilifying and demonizing the agency.
“When you’re a service-driven organization or individual, and you join a service and mission-driven agency like the Border Patrol … and when all of a sudden, your value and worth from the highest levels of your agency or the organization like the President, demonize you, vilifies you, removes your sense of purpose, and you combine that with other factors in life. That just opens that demon that you’ve been fighting at home,” Clem said.
