NAFTA problems?
Growing Problems in Policing US-Mexico Border
By Pam Wolfe
CNS Correspondent
03 April, 2000
Las Cruces, NM (CNSNews.com) - The Immigration and Naturalization Service is having problems finding qualified job applicants to meet the growing needs of policing the US border with Mexico and recent incidents with Mexican authorities may be compounding those problems.
Despite Clinton Administration goals of hiring 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents last year, fewer than 40% of the positions that should have been filled are staffed, according to a Government Accounting Office report on INS hiring difficulties. Part of the problem, according to the December 1999 report, is the six-12 month timeline involved in making a hire for the Border Patrol.
"INS officials believe its applicants may not be willing to wait six months to a year for a Border Patrol job offer," reads the GAO report, which also noted that most of the more than 50,000 job applicants last year failed the INS written exam, did not follow-through with the various stages in the hiring process or failed other medical and background examinations.
But a series of incidents involving Mexican authorities along the US-Mexico border may also be putting a damper on hiring INS agents.
According to an INS agent report, two vehicles of Mexican soldiers ran down a barbed wire fence along the border last month and ambushed a number of US Border Patrol Agents, pursuing and firing shots at the agents despite warnings in English and Spanish that they were American agents.
Nine Mexican soldiers were arrested at the scene by American authorities, according to the report, but they were quickly released without reprimand on orders from the US Justice Department.
Another incident in late March involved the jailing of a US Marine by Mexican authorities after the Marine reportedly became lost near the border, prompting an INS agent who asked not to be identified to say "it just makes it all the harder" to find qualified job applicants for Border Patrol jobs in light of such incidents.
Other INS agents have reportedly said they have been told to keep quiet about the Mexican Army incident under threat by the Justice Department of losing their jobs. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, some Border Patrol officials have speculated that Mexican drug cartel bounties of up to $200,000 for killing American agents might be responsible in part for the incidents.
The INS has a difficult time recruiting qualified candidates, and a more difficult time retaining the agents on the job, according to the GAO. In addition to high levels of stress, layered by long stretches of boredom, agents are documenting increasing threats to their personal safety.
Last year, the Border Patrol hired 1,126 agents. But 757 agents left the agency in 1999, leaving the agency with a net gain of only 369, well below the mandated 1,000 additional posts on the border.
INS attracted inquires from 53,441 eligible applicants in 1999, but 75% of them didn't show up for the written exam. 72% of those who did take the test failed, according to GAO, and about only about two-thirds of those passing the written exam showed up for an interview.
The hiring problems of 1999 were compounded by the fact that about 40% of those who passed the interview failed their background checks or medical examinations.
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