CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus terminates Border Patrol Critical Incident Teams; duties transferred to Office of Professional Responsibility

On approximately May 6, 2022 (memorandum dated May 2022; the press release date variously reported as May 3 or May 6), CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus issued an internal memorandum directing the disbandment of all Border Patrol Critical Incident Teams by October 1, 2022 (the end of fiscal year 2022). The memorandum transferred responsibility for responding to critical incidents — defined as incidents resulting in death or serious injury involving Border Patrol personnel — to CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the agency’s statutorily-authorized internal investigations component.

The termination followed the January 24, 2022 joint letter from ten House and Senate committee chairs requesting a GAO audit of BPCITs (entry 2022-01-24–ten-congressional-chairs-request-gao-audit-cbp-critical-incident-teams). It was welcomed by Senator Alex Padilla (one of the ten signatories) and by the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which had first surfaced the cover-up allegations in October 2021.

Magnus simultaneously committed to developing a new CBP policy for vehicle pursuits in response to an 11-fold increase in deaths linked to CBP pursuits in 2022.

The May 2024 GAO report (GAO-24-106148) subsequently documented two findings that qualify the substantive reform claim: (1) former CIT members were reassigned to Evidence Collection Teams and Management Inquiry Teams operating under sector-chief direction in the same manner as the original CITs; (2) OPR is not fully independent of CBP management and new OPR hires are drawn largely from Border Patrol ranks. The structural cover-up architecture did not end on October 1, 2022; it was rebranded.

Magnus was forced to resign on November 12, 2022 at the request of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — six months after the CIT termination memorandum. Contemporaneous reporting attributes his ouster to broader management posture and the 2022 migrant surge rather than to the CIT decision specifically.