The U.S. Border Patrol is targeting people leaving the military in an effort to meet the president's goal of adding 6,000 new agents by the end of 2008.
The agency has raised the age limit for new agents by three years to age 40, to attract men and women who have completed careers in the armed services, said Border Patrol Tucson Sector chief Robert W. Gilbert.
And more help could be on the way, too: The Senate's immigration reform proposal instructs the Department of Homeland Security to consider offering incentives to members of the reserves or former armed-service members with two years of separation from service.
"They go in at 18 years old, do 20 years, and they are 38," Gilbert said recently, in an Arizona Daily Star editorial board meeting. "Why wouldn't we want to grab that resource that the American people have already paid to train and just continue with a new line of training? A lot of the skill sets are similar, but now it's enforcement, not military."
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Trained and physically fit soldiers make sense to fill the jobs but critics question the logic behind bringing soldiers trained for war to a border with a friendly neighbor. And the agency's union says raising the age limit could prove detrimental in the long-term.
"From this moment forward, there'll never ever be any justification for the Border Patrol to say, 'We're not militarizing the border,' " said the Rev. Robin Hoover, the founder of Humane Borders, which places water tanks throughout the desert. "We will now be militarizing our frontier and there is no getting around that. And it will have consequences for civil rights."
The training for soldiers is quite different than for agents, Hoover said. Soldiers are given heavy doses of weapons training that isn't necessary for Border Patrol agents who spend most of their time dealing with "economic migrants" who aren't dangerous, he said.
"If that is pre-eminent in your mind, you are going to be more apt to use it," said Hoover, about weapons training.
Accusing ex-military personnel of being more prone to unjustified violence or dangerous is "garbage," said Dave Stoddard, a former Border Patrol supervisor who retired in 1996 after 27 years with the agency.
"Military has rules of engagement. Border Patrol has rules of engagement and as long as their rules are complied with ...," Stoddard said. "Nobody comes out of the military a mass murderer. Those arguments are specious."
Filling the Border Patrol with agents who have a military background isn't novel, he said. Nearly all of his classmates who graduated with him in 1969 from the Border Patrol academy were ex-military, he said. Stoddard served three years in the Army before joining the agency.
A return to that focus would enhance an agency that depends too much on new agents who have never taken orders from anybody but "mommy and daddy," he said.
"I think it's a terrific idea for several reasons," Stoddard said. "The former military guy knows how to take orders. He doesn't get panicked in emergency situations like coming under fire. He's already familiar with weapons and strategies and tactics. And, he has already dedicated three to six years to serving the country."
People with military experience who want to serve their country and have proven they can withstand rigorous training make a good match for the agency, said T.J. Bonner, president of the agents' union, the National Border Patrol Council.
But raising the age limit is the latest in a series of ill-advised decisions made by agency leaders under pressure to meet the president's goal, he said. Somebody who has completed a military career and who doesn't earn a desk job could be a liability in his or her final years, he said.
"There is a reason they put in that age limit: to have a young and vigorous work force," Bonner said. "It was an ill-advised move to do that, but it is a move that reflects the level of desperation they have."
The Border Patrol is focusing its recruiting efforts on people leaving the military and on college campuses but is also trying new tactics. The agency is paying $975,000 to sponsor a Chevy NASCAR Busch Series car for 25 races in an attempt to increase the agency's household recognition in "Middle America," and encourage candidates to apply. The agency is also offering a $1,500 bonus to employees who refer new agents.
The agency is considering ways to expedite the training for agents such as trimming 30 days for trainees who already speak Spanish and converting post-academy classroom training to computer-based training, which would allow agents to do their once-a-week training at duty stations rather than traveling to sector headquarters, according to a March Government Accountability Office report on Border Patrol training.
The Border Patrol hired 1,000 agents last fiscal year, bringing the total number of agents currently to 13,350, said Todd Fraser, agency spokesman at headquarters in Washington, D.C. The agency plans to hire 2,500 new agents by Sept. 30, when the current fiscal year ends. The 2008 budget requests funding for 3,000 agents, he said.
Officials do not have the number of agents they've hired with military experience.
The growth would be unprecedented for an agency that from 1992 to 2006 increased its total number of agents by an average of 530 a year, from 4,139 to 12,084. Only once, from 1997 to 1998, did it increase its ranks by more than 1,000 in a year.
Agency officials say they're devoting more resources and money to the hiring push this time, but with a 12 percent attrition rate (according to Bonner), the agency anticipates needing to hire and train about 9,100 agents to meet the goal, according to the GAO report.
The Border Patrol's training program in Artesia, N.M., is effective and should be able to accommodate the large number of trainees, but the concern lies in the on-the-job training and supervision necessary once agents reach their sectors, the report concluded.
Agency officials told the GAO that a 5-to-1 agent-to-supervisor ratio is desirable to ensure proper supervision of new agents. In October 2006, that ratio ranged from 7-to-1 to 11-to-1, the report found.
After graduating from the academy, new Border Patrol agents are required to take Spanish and law/operations classes at their sector headquarters one day a week for 20 weeks. They have to pass probationary exams at seven and 10 months and are assigned to a field-training unit led by at least one senior agent for on-the-job training.
The mentoring from veteran agents is essential to help the agency assimilate and evaluate whether the agent has the aptitude and qualifications, Bonner said. If that doesn't happen properly, the agency could end up with agents who don't belong, he added.
The union's biggest worry is that the shortcuts will allow corrupt agents to slip through the cracks. That's happened before in the Border Patrol and with major law enforcement agencies that try to expand the ranks rapidly, as the agency is doing, he said.
"Our safety is jeopardized by this rush to meet an artificial goal," Bonner said.
Border Patrol Chief Gilbert said former military personnel will assimilate nicely into the culture of both the agency and the Southwest and that the agency will not relax its historically rigid standards despite the deadline.
"It's a hard job to get and a hard job to keep and we want it that way," Gilbert said. "We have never been better staffed or better funded in the history of the Border Patrol than we are right now. Our concern is managing our growth ... hiring the right people with the right mind-sets and personalities for law enforcement."
For extensive border coverage including videos, slide shows and polls, go to azstarnet.com/border
The numbers
• On May 15, 2006, President Bush vowed to increase the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents by an additional 6,000 by the end of 2008, expanding the ranks to 18,000.
• To reach the goal, the agency anticipates needing to hire and train about 9,100 agents to account for a 12 percent attrition rate..
• The Border Patrol hired 1,000 agents last fiscal year, bringing the total number of agents currently to 13,350. The agency plans to hire 2,500 new agents by Sept. 30, when the current fiscal year ends.
• It costs $187,744 to recruit, train and equip a new Border Patrol agent. Training at the academy costs $14,733 for each new agent.
• Agents get starting pay of $35,000 to $40,000, and it can increase to as much as $50,000 with overtime.
• Over the past three years, about 73 percent of those entering the Border Patrol training academy have graduated.
• The Border Patrol is focusing on ex-military and on college campuses.
•The agency is sponsoring a Chevy NASCAR Busch Series car for 25 races. Officials are hoping the car will increase the agency's recognition in "Middle America," and encourage candidates to apply.
Sources: Department of Homeland Security, Government Accountability Office, Arizona Daily Star archives
On the web: Government Accountability Office report on Border Patrol training: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07540r.pdf
