Exclusive: Mark Morgan and Manny Padilla top candidates to lead Customs and Border Protection
Mark Morgan and Manny Padilla are at the top of the White House list of candidates to replace outgoing acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders, according to three sources with firsthand knowledge of the discussions. Sanders announced his July 5 resignation in a letter Monday to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, the former CBP commissioner. Sanders shared the letter with the agency's 60,000 personnel Tuesday.
Morgan, who was recently tapped as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had been serving as national chief of the U.S. Border Patrol for three months when Trump fired him at the beginning of 2017. Morgan emerged as a commentator on Fox News late last year and has since made a name for himself by endorsing President Trump's policies. He was tapped as the temporary head of ICE in early May. Morgan had no experience as a Border Patrol agent nor working for ICE prior to his current stint. He spent 11 years in the Marine Corps and 20 years in the FBI, and he was tapped in 2014 for assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. In that role, he oversaw the Border Patrol's 20,000 personnel. "It's gonna be Morgan," one official told the Washington Examiner. Two other officials said Morgan's name was one of the top two contenders.
The same official said the White House was originally pushing for Morgan to take over CBP in April when acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan was promoted, but McAleenan opposed Morgan and won. "Ultimately, it’s Trump’s decision," the source said. "McAleenan won the last fight, and now it looks like [Stephen] Miller’s gonna win this fight." Miller runs immigration policy in the White House.
The second official in line is Manuel "Manny" Padilla, a 30-year Border Patrol employee based in Washington. Padilla was tapped in early April to head the department's border crisis cell. In this role, he is responsible for improving the sharing of information and coordinating support among DHS agencies, including ICE, CBP, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and others. Padilla took up the border crisis role when Trump temporarily reassigned from his post as the director of the DHS Joint Task Force West, to which he was appointed last September. Before that, he was the chief of Border Patrol's busiest sector on the southern border, the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
The White House has cycled through a large number of DHS officials since Trump took office 30 months ago. In that time, the number of people illegally crossing the southern border has gone from 45-year lows to near-record highs. The first official said a new CBP leader should focus on holding his subordinates accountable for poor decisions.
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