Thread: BP meets goal, still needs agents

February 8, 2009 - 10:16 PM
By Jared Taylor/The Monitor
EDINBURG - The guys and gals in green met their recruitment goal last year.



But the U.S. Border Patrol continues to push for more people to apply to become agents.



In May 2006, President George W. Bush ordered the Border Patrol to boost its ranks by 50 percent, to 18,000 agents nationwide. That goal was met in December 2008.



"Even though we have met our hiring commitment it doesn't mean we're going to stop hiring," said John Lopez, a local Border Patrol spokesman. "The need always continues."



That need has brought nearly 300 new agents since October 2008 to the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector, which covers the border from Starr County to the Gulf Coast and stretches northward past Victoria.



Those new boots on the ground represent about a 15-percent boost in the agency's ranks since October. But the new hires are just a fraction of the more than 5,000 people in the Valley who have applied to become agents in the past four months alone, Lopez said.



"It means we have grabbed them, have gotten their attention," he said.



Perhaps much of that attention comes with a starting annual salary of nearly $50,000 with only a high school diploma, Lopez said.



But many applicants either drop out or fail during the hiring process.



Agent Sylvia Vega recruits new Border Patrol applicants in the Valley. She said strong recruits generally are excited by the job's prospects, are strong and independent and like to spend time outdoors.



After prospective agents pass a background check, they move on to an 11-week training course in Artesia, N.M.



There, students take law classes, firearms training and work on physical fitness.



But as the numbers show - only 6 percent of local applicants actually graduate from the academy - most applicants don't make it, either because they change their mind or flunk out.



"You have to keep up everything that is thrown your way," Vega said. "When you get to the point that you can't mathematically make it, you're out and you're fired."



For those who do graduate from training, the next two years are a probationary period after which they become full agents or are given additional coursework.



Despite the federal benefits and salary, between 20 percent and 30 percent of Border Patrol agents - including those students who drop out of the academy - leave the agency every year, keeping the demand for new agents high, Lopez said.



"Now, we're just working on attrition," he said. "We still need the agents."


http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/g ... _guys.html

They need a second tier, the Wall of Americans, that don't require an 11 week course, who don't need the extensive legal training or firearms training, but who serve as minimally trained guards of the border who then bring in the more trained agents to make the actual arrests, process the people, take them to the hospital, etc., etc., etc.