Border Patrol Steps Up Recruiting
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A NASCAR race car, sponsored by the U.S. Border Patrol. Billboards hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande, promoting a career as a border agent. TV commercials for the federal agency, aired during Dallas Cowboys games.
With the Border Patrol undergoing an unprecedented hiring boom, the agency is going to extraordinary lengths to compete with police departments around the country for an unusually small pool of qualified applicants.
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Previously, the Border Patrol relied heavily on word of mouth and job fairs to find recruits. But it has been forced to get creative to compete with local and state agencies, including the expanding Texas Department of Public Safety, that are mimicking the corporate world with hiring incentives such as take-home cars, paid internships and five-figure signing bonuses.
The multimillion-dollar recruiting campaign was also prompted by a shortage of qualified candidates, blamed on a number of factors. Among them: the strong economy, which can offer jobs that pay more than the Border Patrol’s starting salary of about $35,000 to $45,000; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has reduced the flow of military retirees applying for second careers in law enforcement; and the Border Patrol’s own stringent requirements.
Too many applicants lack the clean criminal records and good credit required for patrol duty along the border, where bribes are an ever-present temptation.
Nationally, only about 3 percent to 5 percent of applicants for law enforcement jobs meet the requirements, according to Jason Abend, executive director for the National Law Enforcement Recruiters Association. Olsen said the Border Patrol finds an average of one qualified candidate for every 30 to 40 applicants—a rate as low as 2.5 percent.
{snip}
To reach recruits, the agency is posting highway billboards well inland, including suburban Salt Lake City, 800 miles north of the Mexican border, and is looking into other new corners of the country.
{snip}
Border Patrol officials are also talking about making a slogan for the agency, one they hope would become as ubiquitous as the Marines’ “The few, the proud.”
Also, the Border Patrol has raised its age limit for new hires to 40 from 37.
{snip}
(Posted on January 11, 2008)
Comments
Also one of the benefits is that if you do your job, your reward will be a decade in Federal prison being assaulted by the kind of people you used to arrest and apprehend.
Posted by St. Louis CofCC Blogmeister at 6:17 PM on January 11
Hopefully, this continues into “acutal” border patrolling (for drug smugglers, illegal immigrants etc), rather than the on-going trend of “bureaucratification” of the Border Patrol.
Also, I would hope this doesn’t turn into another pitiful attempt at ‘securing the border’, when actual journalists discover that, after a few months, most of the new agents have been “let-off”…
Posted by Obscuratus at 6:50 PM on January 11
Border Patrol officials are also talking about making a slogan for the agency, one they hope would become as ubiquitous as the Marines’ “The few, the proud.”
How about “The too few, the crowd”?
Posted by Voir Dire at 8:40 PM on January 11
Well, I geuss it’s a good sign they’re hiring. While reading it I actually considered applying, but I’m to young. If there are any unemployed Amrenners out there, now’s your chance, make a difference and get paid doing it.
Posted by PincheGabacho at 9:00 PM on January 11
Border Patrol officials are also talking about making a slogan for the agency, one they hope would become as ubiquitous as the Marines’ “The few, the proud”…
“The few, the scared”… Who wants to end up like Ramos and Compeon? No wonder they’re having to spread their ads!
Posted by Jackers at 9:08 PM on January 11
Who in their right mind would want to be a border patrol agent??? I mean look at the two agents who shot at the drug dealers. The government believed the lies of the drug runners and put the border patrol agents in federal prison for 12 years and Dubya won’t pardon them. The governmet ties the hands of the border patrol in what is a dangerous and lawless border. You couldn’t pay me enough. Anyway, what is the of even having a border patrol when the government won’t enforce its’ immigration laws and basically allows every Mexican and potential Muslim terrorist into the country and coddles them.
Posted by KC at 9:09 PM on January 11
It sounds like they’re a lot more serious than what they were a couple/three years ago. But then Bush was doing about everything he could to withhold funds from the Border Patrol. I recall that Congress authorized X amount of dollars for new hires, but Bush never used the funds or switched them over to something else, I don’t recall now.
I know there’s been a lot of hard complaints against Chertoff, and they’re probably valid, but I shudder to think what kind of Homeland Security Department we would have had if Tom Ridge had stayed on as leader. That man is so lacking in guts and is so without any fire in his belly I doubt anything much would have been accomplished. He probably would have made an excellent librarian, however.
There’s still a lot of foot dragging on the issue of border protection, and frankly I’m surprised that we haven’t had a terrorist attack from militarily trained elements who might have sneaked into the country at one of the more remote points.
One guy crossed the Rio Grande making as much noise as a circus, riding an elephant in broad daylight, if I’m remembering correctly, and he was never challenged. There’s no reason a company size terrorist unit couldn’t cross under the cover of darkness fully armed with tons of explosives.
If they had perpetrated another attack, Bush probably would have been impeached for failing to protect the country. He’s either been super lucky or the terrorists are just super stupid, because if they wanted to cause us economic ruin by blowing up structures, they’ve had ample opportunity to do so.
However, on second thought, jihadist elements just might not want to create havoc here for fear that the border will then be closed, and they don’t want that, because they know that the inundation of millions of illegals is slowly causing this country to split apart in violence of its own making.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 9:20 PM on January 11
that’s like hiring a babysitter after your children have graduated from college!
Posted by dmz at 9:34 PM on January 11
“Well, I guess it’s a good sign they’re hiring. While reading it I actually considered applying, but I’m too young.”
Without question since you are working on your master’s degree, you’re overqualified and want to leave that reconquista-triumph you call “Lost Angeles”…but have you taken notice of AmRen’s job opening? Granted, VERY expensive area of VA - naturally due to its being a White flight refuge from D.C. political and racial sewer?
—S.
Posted by Voir Dire at 9:59 PM on January 11
All I have to say is potential recruits should wait until the results of the current election, before making this particular career choice.
Posted by at 10:15 PM on January 11
Border Patrol officials are also talking about making a slogan for the agency, one they hope would become as ubiquitous as the Marines’ “The few, the proud.”
Considering what (as noted by astute posters above) criminal El Presidente Bush has orchestrated from above to our front-line of defense soldiers (persecuted), how about:
“The TOO few, the cowed”?
Posted by Voir Dire at 10:37 PM on January 11
The returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will be taking release from the military, and that’s who they should recruit.
Posted by at 11:35 PM on January 11
There is no shortage of manpower to protect our border. There is a shortage of will. The Feds want a North American union. We have troops all over the world and we’re occupying two countries (Afganistan and Iraq) which were never a threat and could never be a threat to our country. The biggest enemy of the USA is the marxist federal government that has thrown our borders open to third worlders and squandered trillions of tax dollars on welfare and foreign wars.
Posted by Flamethrower at 1:31 AM on January 12
The US Border Patrol——come to work for us; do your job and get sent to prison!
Posted by Trisket at 4:11 AM on January 12
Many of the Indians here in AZ are marginally employed and would love a chance to work with their fellow natives instead of having to work in phoenix away from family. I’m sure they would make an excellent border patrol, far better than the almost all Hispanic one we have now.
Posted by Ronduck at 9:46 PM on January 12
The BP has a lot working against it, like being subjected to the disastrous, bloated, and worthless DHS. It appears that DHS policy is to destroy the BP, by small bites and cuts if need be.
A few years ago some fool in DHS who couldn’t tell the border from shinola developed the “One Face at the Border” concept (A.K.A. “One Farce at the Border”) where the BP Agent will become interchangeable with the Customs Inspector and visa-versa. Senior management in the BP has stood by and let this disaster progress. As a result the BP has already lost its Air Wing to Customs and are in the process of losing their boat patrol unit also. Some traditional BP logos have been replaced with sick looking DHS seals. Eventually the BP field uniform will be replaced, thus erasing the complete identity of the agency. How about reds shirts and red trousers? This way the illegals will know whom to approach for housing benefits, hospital care, SS numbers, free food, and of course voting registration cards and ballots pre-marked for the correct candidates. All in Spanish of course please.
Behind this destruction of the BP is a political movement consisting of two main forces that go beyond the normal power grabs, empire building and stupidity of senior hack management. One is the open border crowd that wants no enforcement. But this group also knows that Americans still hold the BP in high regard and support its mission, thus the agency cannot be abolished outright and they even conceded to an alleged build-up which is more of a political bone than anything else. So they are left with the option to dwindle away the agency’s effectiveness and moral slowly over time by any devious means possible.
The other force is that of feminists in power positions in DC who see the Patrol much as they did the Citadel and VMI; a male cultural bastion that must be changed. There are many capable female Agents in the BP, yet overall the male culture remains as it was over the years. By the way this feminist cabal also gave the Navy its floating brothels and diminished the effectiveness of the Army’s combat support units by insisting on female participation.
This article addressed recruiting. The BP has increased its recruiting over the past several years. One problem that the Article does not mention is attrition. Part of the attrition problem is caused by the false advertising propagated in the recruiting film. Unlike military recruits, when new Agents see that they have been hooked in by the propaganda they can quit or transfer to another job with the Feds. Much of this happens to BP recruits after they hit the field and find out the reality. This of course adds to the recruiting problems.
Another serious problem is the training site in Artesia NM which does not have the capability to handle large numbers of new recruits without serious facility problems. In some cases the trainees are stacked two and four to a dorm room. Occasionally the new recruit simply quits on site after seeing the living conditions. The geniuses that forced this move of the training facility from adequate space at Charleston SC to Artesia, should be demoted or even terminated from their jobs.
In spite of these difficulties the BP rank and file (Agents, Jr. Supervisors, and on-site senior management) have brought some order to many areas of the border. The best that could happen to the BP is for it to become a separate complete agency again by itself. The best that could happen to homeland security is to abolish DHS along with the Customs service. Hire private guards to do the work of Customs officers at half the price. Reactivate the old INS (under a new name) and give it to ICE. Thus ICE would have border inspection officers to complement their present internal enforcement officers.
From Yankee occupied territory.
Posted by Pecosbill at 2:01 PM on January 13
“The other force is that of feminists in power positions in DC who see the Patrol much as they did the Citadel and VMI; a male cultural bastion that must be changed. There are many capable female Agents in the BP, yet overall the male culture remains as it was over the years. By the way this feminist cabal also gave the Navy its floating brothels and diminished the effectiveness of the Army’s combat support units by insisting on female participation. “
Women have always served in support positions for military troops since long before feminism. Also, it wasn’t about all-male schools(Citadel), it was about tax supported public schools being all male, female or whatever. Private schools can be all male.
Posted by at 6:11 AM on January 14
I’d be in favor of giving the Border Patrol back to the Department of Justice, perhaps as a branch of the U.S. Marshals Service
and Customs back to Treasury or jointly between Treasury, Agriculture and Justice. for revenue and specie enforcement, drug interdiction and agricultural inspection/enforcement.
Until Messrs. Compean and Ramos are pardoned and Johnny Sutton put on trial for obstruction of justice and defrauding the United States, though I can’t see the Border Patrol as credible.
Posted by NH Libertarian at 10:13 AM on January 14
>>>Also one of the benefits is that if you do your job, your reward will be a decade in Federal prison being assaulted by the kind of people you used to arrest and apprehend.
Thanks, of course, to the WORST PRESIDENT AMERICA HAS EVER HAD! George W. Bush managing to beat out Lyndon Johnson and William T. Clinton for that [DIS]HONOR!
As an afterthought, should the unthinkable happen, and Hillary Clinton ascended to the White House, how soon would she pass husband Bill’s well-deserved title as one of America’s WORST presidents?
Posted by Fed Up at 4:57 PM on January 14
Personally, I have long advocated that the entire BATFE be transfered to Border Patrol and ICE duties. That way, the zealotry they use to kill and destroy gun owners (David Koresh, et al.) would be put to good use. The ICE agents should be transfered to BATFE so that they can state nothing can be done, which is FINE with me, as gun control laws are ILLEGAL.
Posted by at 10:14 PM on January 15