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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (190966)	10/11/2001 10:10:16 AM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 769667

Here's something you can do to help your country, join the border patrol. Border Patrol may lose a third of agents to air marshal force By Alison Gregor San Antonio Express-News Thursday, October 11, 2001 BROWNSVILLE -- Union officials say the U.S. Border Patrol faces a catastrophic loss of agents, with as many as one-third of the force that guards the nation's frontiers looking for new jobs as air marshals. Among the marshals hired when the Federal Aviation Administration first posted new openings on Sept. 19 were 26 agents from the McAllen Border Patrol sector, a union official said. They start work Monday. Many more may leave. "We have guys that applied the second day that haven't even been called yet for interviews," said Scott Avery, president of the McAllen sector's union, the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3307. Avery said a survey of agents suggested that more than 3,000 may have applied for jobs as air marshals. A San Diego union official said a random poll of 140 Border Patrol agents recently concluded that 77 percent were actively looking for other jobs; another 9 percent probably were looking. "I think the Border Patrol is facing what can only best be termed as a catastrophic personnel loss," said Joseph Daffaro, president of Local 1613 of the National Border Patrol Council. He said a Border Patrol agent with two or three years of experience is a perfect candidate for the air marshals. The Border Patrol is known for its sharpshooters, its bilingual speakers and its training in immigration, Customs and drug interdiction. "My understanding is, if you're a Border Patrol agent, the air marshal interview process was no longer than 15 minutes," Daffaro said. "That's pretty much a rubber stamp." Officials with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the patrol's parent agency, said they did not yet know the number of Border Patrol agents who had applied for air marshal jobs. The agency also does not know how many agents may leave to fulfill obligations with military reserves, officials said. If 3,000 agents have applied, the agency could face staffing problems, especially if anywhere near that many are hired, one official said. "Of course, 3,000 is about one-third," said Tomas Zuniga, an INS spokesman in Dallas. "That would give us cause for concern. If that was true, that's a large number." About 5,000 Border Patrol applicants are in the pipeline, Zuniga said. INS officials say, however, that they have been unable to find enough qualified applicants to meet the 1996 congressional mandate of filling 1,000 positions per year over five years. John Clabes, an FAA spokesman, said the air marshal program has attracted 37,000 applications. Of those, 6,000 have been processed. For security reasons, the FAA will not say how many marshals it will hire or when they start training. Union officials said it is not surprising that Border Patrol agents are seeking to take to the sky. Although entry-level air marshals can earn as much as $35,100, Border Patrol agents in the McAllen sector are paid $29,150.