Biden admin to Border Patrol agents: Use preferred pronouns of illegal immigrants

As the immigration crisis at the southern border continues, Border Patrol agents have been directed by the Biden administration to only use preferred pronouns of illegal immigrants being detained.

The directive appears in a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) document, obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which released it on X.

The news comes even as the CBP under President Joe Biden struggles to control what Republicans argue is a crisis created by the progressive administration’s refusal to enforce immigration laws.  

The CBP document is titled “Guide to Facilitating Effective Communication with Individuals who Identify as LGBTQI+.” 

It directs CBP employees not to use “’he, him,’ ‘she her’ pronouns until you have more information about, or provided by, the individual.” 

It also direct CBP employees to avoid the use of gendered titles such as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” and “sir” and “ma’am.”  

The document then tells CBP employees to keep what it calls “LGBTQI+ status” confidential, which is ironic in a document requiring employees to specifically inquire about gender status prior to using any pronoun. 

At the end of the fiscal year 2023, a record number of border apprehensions were notched for the third straight year, according to the New York Times.   

“There were more than 2.4 million apprehensions in the 2023 fiscal year, which ended in September,” reported the Times. “That tops the previous record, set a year earlier, of more than 2.3 million, according to government data released on Saturday. During the 2021 fiscal year, there were more than 1.7 million apprehensions.”  

The Times notes that Biden’s immigration policies are a “major political vulnerability” for the 2024 presidential election. 

Republicans have called the recent turmoil on the southern border “the worst border crisis in American history” and blamed the crisis on the Biden administration’s removal of “deterrent-focused immigration policies and border enforcement tools.”  

John Modlin, Chief Patrol Agent for the Tucson Sector of the CBP said the crisis was “unprecedented to a point where I don’t have the correct adjective to describe what’s going on,” during testimony before a House Oversight Committee in February.    

CBP border agents testified that drug cartels and human traffickers are exploiting Biden’s vulnerabilities on the border by saturating areas with illegal immigrants.  

Now critics worry that CBP agents already overwhelmed with stopping the flow of illegal and sometimes dangerous immigrants will only be further burdened by the latest progressive gender policy, with all its meticulous detail. 

For instance, under the “DO NOT” section of the document, CBP agents are told not to question any conflicts between a person’s expressed gender identity and official documents. 

“There may be instances where a person’s stated pronoun/gender may be different than the pronoun/gender reflected on their official identification,” reads the CBP instructions from Biden’s DHS. “You should not correct or disagree with the person’s self-identified pronoun/gender, but you may ask for verification if someone’s pronouns are unclear. As noted below, the conversation should be kept confidential to the extent feasible.”  

The Oversight Project noted the farcical nature of the entire document by highlight a note from the CBP document’s editors, with what might be termed an unintended understatement: “The meanings of the terms may change over time.”