EXCLUSIVE — Border Patrol agents around the country largely view Gloria Chavez as the front-runner to succeed USBPChief Raul Ortiz following his retirement at the end of June.
The Washington Examiner on Wednesday spoke with 10 tenured agents who ranged from regional management posts to those in the top echelon of its leadership. All but two said they expected Chavez, the leader of Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley region in southeast Texas, to be tapped by the Biden administration for the non-political job. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.
A second agent who has worked side-by-side with Chavez recently said he hoped she would get the job based on his experience working alongside her. Several other agents said they expected Chavez to get the job, but added that she would not have been their first pick, in part because of her testimony before Congress earlier this year.
But away from the southern border and back in Washington, Chavez's chances of promotion appeared to be far slimmer than those in the field believed it to be. Two of the top officials in Border Patrol who are clued into the high-level talks about Ortiz's replacement cast doubt on Chavez's chances. Nine Border Patrol employees who spoke with the Washington Examiner in December 2019 said Zamora did not face internal discipline as agents are supposed to face and retired as a result of his connections to high-ranking officials who pulled strings to protect him.
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