Border Patrol agents vote no confidence in agency chief

The leaders of the U.S. Border Patrol's agents have unanimously voted a no-confidence resolution against Chief David V. Aguilar. The resolution won endorsement from all 100 top leaders of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), which represents all 11,000 of the U.S. Border Patrol's nonsupervisory field agents.

The resolution targeted Aguilar's lack of support for field agents, several of whom have been prosecuted on civil rights grounds involving arrests of illegal aliens and drug-smuggling suspects. "Front-line Border Patrol agents who risk their lives protecting our borders have every reason to expect that the leadership of their own agency will support them," T.J. Bonner, NBPC president, said.

"Chief Aguilar is required to make decisions every day and to make some very tough decisions, some of which are not always popular," said Border Patrol spokesman Xavier Rios.

"Instead of maintaining their traditional neutral advisory role, these high-level managers have become advocates for the administration's ill-conceived political agenda that includes amnesty for millions of illegal aliens," Bonner said.