Border Patrol Can’t Find Enough Agents to Implement Trump’s Immigration Crackdown
In late February, less than a month after President Donald
Trump took office, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued new
immigration enforcement orders that included telling Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) to immediately hire 5,000 new agents. The CBP also was ordered to hire
500 Air and Marine agents.
The problem is that CBP already
is facing a shortage of agents willing to do the job.
The Guardian reports
that Border Patrol chief Ronald Vitiello and other senior officials discussed
the shortage of agents at a border
security trade fair in San Antonio, TX, essentially begging attendees to
sign up.
According to the newspaper:
“If you know people who are enthusiastic about border
security please send them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP),” Ronald
Vitiello, the Border Patrol chief, said in an appeal this week. “We’re already
behind. We’re not hiring fast enough to keep up with the attrition.”
The CBP currently has 19,000 agents, which is 2,000 agents short
of a target set by the administration of President Barack Obama. That’s the
first time the number of agents has dipped below 20,000 since
2009, The Associated Press reported. Plus, about 1,000 agents quit every
year.
In addition to the isolation and difficult conditions of the
job, one of the reasons CBP can’t find enough agents is because getting hired
requires passing a lie-detector test. According to AP, two out of three CBP
applicants fail the polygraph test.
CBP began using lie-detector tests for applications in 2012
after several agents were arrested for misconduct. While being administered
lie-detector tests after that, some applicants admitted being sent by drug
cartels.
CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske told AP that lie-detector
failure rates are high because the agency isn’t attracting the kind of people
it wants. After all, being a border patrol agent takes a special kind of
person. Other officials and some lawmakers counter that the testing borders on
harassment.
The DHS order eventually will have to be
enforced somehow. But at this point, it’s unclear how that’s going to happen.