Border Patrol may loosen lie-detector hiring requirement

Polygraph a recruiting disadvantage against other agencies, acting director says

SAN DIEGO — The Border Patrol’s parent agency would exempt many veterans and law enforcement officers from a hiring requirement to take a lie-detector test under a proposal to satisfy President Donald Trump’s order to add 5,000 agents, according to a memo released by the agents’ union.

The memo by Kevin McAleenan, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner, calls the polygraph a “significant deterrent and point of failure” for applicants and a recruiting disadvantage against the separate Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is under Trump’s orders to hire 10,000 people and does not require lie detectors.

The Associated Press reported in January about two-thirds of job applicants fail CBP’s polygraph, more than double the average rate of law enforcement agencies that provided data under open-records requests. Those failures are a major reason why the Border Patrol recently fell below 20,000 agents for the first time since 2009. Many applicants have complained they are subjected to unusually long and hostile interrogations.

The undated memo lays out a plan for the agency to build a force of 26,370 agents in five years.

McAleenan said CBP is also considering a sixmonth experiment with an alternative polygraph test that takes less time to administer.

Any waiver may require congressional approval due to a 2010 law that introduced the requirement in an effort to root out corruption and misconduct after an earlier hiring surge. McAleenan’s memo is addressed to the Homeland Security Department deputy secretary for approval, suggesting that the Trump administration may not yet back the plan.

CBP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The National Border Patrol Council, which represents Border Patrol agents, received the memo Tuesday and has been working closely with the agency to execute Trump’s plan, said Shawn Moran, a union vice president. He called the changes to the polygraph “a more commonsense approach” and said current failure rates are “ridiculous.”

“Obviously we want to get the best candidates. We want to make sure that we have stringent background checks, but when it comes to the polygraph, that thing, I think, has been far too excessive in weeding out potentially good candidates,” Moran said.