Trump’s border hiring surge falls far short of guarantees
WASHINGTON — Two years after President Donald Trump signed orders to hire 15,000 new border agents and immigration officers, the administration has spent tens of millions of dollars in the effort — but has thousands more vacancies than when it began.
In a sign of the difficulties, Customs and Border Protection allocated $60.7 million to Accenture Federal Services, a management consulting firm, as part of a $297 million contract to recruit, vet and hire 7,500 border officers over five years, but the company has produced only 33 new hires so far.
The president’s promised hiring surge steadily lost ground even as he publicly hammered away at the need for stiffer border security, warned of a looming migrant “invasion” and shut down parts of the government for five weeks over his demands for $5.7 billion from Congress for a border wall.
The Border Patrol gained a total of 120 agents in 2018, the first net gain in five years.
But the agency has come nowhere close to adding more than 2,700 agents annually, the rate that Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, has said is necessary to meet Trump’s mandated 26,370 border agents by the end of 2021.
“The hiring surge has not begun,” the inspector general’s office at the Department of Homeland Security concluded in November.
But administration officials argue an immigration system designed for single, adult Mexican men has become woefully outdated.
“The number of families and children we are appre- hending at the border is at record-breaking levels,” a Homeland Security official said. “It’s having a dramatic impact on Border Patrol’s border security mission.”
Since 2015, Customs and Border Protection officers have been required to work overtime and have been sent on temporary assignments to “critically understaffed” points on the southwest border, Tony Reardon, president of the union representing about 30,000 of the agency’s officers, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday.
After fighting for years for higher pay, staff and a better hiring process, Reardon said the agency needs to hire more officers for the 328 ports of entry.
“All of this contributes to a stronger border,” he said.
On Jan. 25, 2017, five days after Trump was inaugurated, he signed executive orders to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, vowing to beef up border security and crack down on illegal immigration.
“Today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders,” Trump said as he signed the orders.
Today, Customs and Border Protection — the Border Patrol’s parent agency — has more than 3,000 job vacancies, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
That’s about 2,000 more than when Trump signed the orders, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Border Patrol staffing remains below the 21,360 agents mandated by Congress in 2016, which is itself 5,000 less than Trump’s order, according to the latest available data.
Experts warned that previous attempts at a hiring surge led to greater corruption, a perennial problem for law enforcement on the border.
Drug cartels and other criminal groups target Border Patrol agents, offering bribes or even sexual favors to allow migrants, drugs and other contraband to cross the border.
To help fight corruption, the Border Patrol set strict vetting requirements, but those measures have slowed the hiring process.
Border Patrol applicants must pass cognitive, fitness and medical exams. They also must provide financial disclosure, undergo drug tests and pass a law enforcement background check and a polygraph test.