Recruiting border agents tough job

AP/Examiner:

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.

"We've not done anything this ambitious before," said Assistant Chief Michael Olsen. "Our biggest task, our biggest hurdle, is just getting our message out to parts of the country that maybe didn't know we existed."

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.

With politicians demanding more "boots on the ground" to secure the Mexican border, the Border Patrol is expanding rapidly. It has gone from about 12,000 agents in 2005 to nearly 15,000 now, and wants to reach about 18,000 by the end of the year.

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.

Michael E. Douglas, a Border Patrol assistant chief patrol agent in Washington, said a team of eight agents is canvassing about 13 Southern states to look for new hires.

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One of the problems is also retention. Many of the new recruits try to move up by getting jobs with Immigration, Customs Enforcement. Apparently the work is more interesting and the pay is better. The Salt Lake City hires are probably a good bet. They may even get a missionary credit for it.

In the past, it is my impression that the jobs were part of a "good old boy" network, which is probably what was meant by word of mouth recruiting. The pay is probably competitive with starting truck drivers and the travel is closer to home.

There have been problems with corruption in the past. The people and drug smugglers were willing to pay to be ignored. With the heightened interest in border enforcement, many of the corrupt have been caught and prosecuted.

However, it is probable that the prosecution of the border agents by US Attorney Johnny Sutton has probably chilled the enthusiasm of some who see that case as being unfair.

Perhaps the recruiters can benefit from the slow down in the housing market. They need to go check out the contractor job sites. However, they may frighten many of the workers into flight if they show up in a marked vehicle.