House Oversight Chair Comer Requests Interviews With Chief Patrol Agents at 4 Southern Border Sectors

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, delivers remarks during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, on Feb. 1, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has requested interviews with the chief patrol agents of four U.S. Border Patrol sectors.

In a Feb. 26 letter to acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller, Comer requested transcribed interviews with Aaron Heitke, the top patrol agent of the San Diego sector; Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector; Patricia McGurk-Daniel, acting chief patrol agent of the Yuma sector; and Peter Jaquez, chief patrol agent of the El Paso sector.

Comer’s letter comes 19 days after a committee hearing where, according to the chairman, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) blocked the aforementioned chief patrol agents from testifying. During the hearing, “two Chief Patrol Agents from U.S. Border Patrol sectors along the southern border testified … regarding their sectors and how they have responded to the unprecedented crisis at the southern border.” The chief patrol agents who testified were Gloria Chavez from the Rio Grande Valley sector and the Tucson sector’s John Modlin.

Comer lamented that Chavez and Modlin “provided candid testimony, but understandably confined their statements and responses to the circumstances of their respective sectors and the unique challenges they confront in those sectors.” The two, wrote Comer, “included many qualifiers specific to their sectors and language illustrating the differences between sectors.” An example was the flow of migrants in the sectors.

Modlin told the committee that “if you’ve seen one Border Patrol sector, you have only seen one Border Patrol sector.”

“I think that, as we continue to move forward, I always ask—whenever Congress is ready to put that team together—look at Border Patrol agents that come in and advise you.... I think there’s many of them out there already with experience that know how to help out in building that path forward because I think it’s time,” Chavez told the committee. “If not, otherwise, if we don’t have the right policies or consequences, the world is watching us, and we’re going to continue to see these large migration flows from around the world entering here at our southern border.”

Those differences, wrote Comer, are why his committee needs to hear from the chiefs of the different sectors along the southern border.

“The uniqueness of each sector demonstrates a need for the committee to obtain additional information regarding other sectors on the southern border,” he said. “As one witness emphasized, ‘if you’ve seen one Border Patrol sector, you have only seen one Border Patrol sector.’”

“The committee believes Chief Patrol Agents managing other sectors have additional, valuable information that will assist the committee in fully understanding the crisis at the southern border,” added Comer.

For convenience, the transcribed interviews will be done with the chief patrol agents in their sector, according to Comer. No deadline was given.

In 2022, there were more than 2 million Border Patrol encounters at the southwest border, according to CBP. So far in 2023, there have been 762,283 such encounters.