Two new reports from government watchdog agencies say the Border Patrol is losing more agents per year faster that it can hire new ones, and that border and immigration enforcement agencies face “significant challenges” in hiring and training new personnel.

The reports from the Inspector General for Homeland Security department and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) were released separately over the past week. Yet both highlight the difficulties that federal agencies have filling the ambitious hiring goals laid out by President Donald Trump.

In a January executive order Trump called for hiring 5,000 more Border patrol agents, and 10,000 officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Both are key components of the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and desire to bulk up border security.

The GAO report examined how the Border Patrol deploys agents and the effectiveness of checkpoints manned by the agency. Auditors said that the agency has fewer agents now than it is supposed to have under a 2011 congressional mandate, which required the agency to have 21,370 agents.


But as of May this year the agency had just 19,500, or 1,870 fewer than required.

Compounding the problem is agents are leaving faster than they can be replaced. Auditors said that between 2013 and 2016 the Border patrol hired an average of 523 agents each year — and saw an average 904 leave.

Reason include better pay at competing agencies, a hiring process that requires applicants to pass a polygraph exam (which other agencies don’t require) and assignments that often send new agents to remote locations along the border.

All but one of the nine sectors that comprise the southwest border, including San Diego sector, are operating below the number of agents they are authorized to have, the report noted.


Auditors also examined how the Border Patrol deploys the agents it has by analyzing three years of work deployment data. It found that 42 percent of the time agents were not available for deployment because of scheduled off time, training or not being on duty.

The audit also sheds new light on where unauthorized immigrants are apprehended and where drug are seized.

Four in 10 apprehensions between 2012 and 2016 occurred a half mile from the border.

However between 64 and 70 percent of all drug seizures by the agencies occurred more than 10 miles from the border, where the agency mans a network of checkpoints. Only 11 percent of seizures occurred close to the border and checkpoints account for less than two percent of apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants.


The checkpoints are controversial with critics saying they are not effective, easily circumvented, and violate constitutional rights. The audit said that the effectiveness of these checkpoints can’t be resolved in large part because the agency still does not have good data collection practices. Auditors have urged better data collection as far back as 2009 but said that there are still gaps in reporting that make analyzing the effectiveness problematic.

The Inspector General’s report examines the management challenges facing the massive Homeland Security department, which includes Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol and ICE, and says the agencies can’t yet justify hiring thousands more agents and officers.

“Neither CBP nor ICE could provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the 15,000 additional agents and officers they were directed to hire,” the report said. “Although DHS has established plans and initiated actions to begin an aggressive hiring surge, in recent years the Department and its components have encountered notable difficulties related to long hire times, proper allocation of staff, and the supply of human resources.”

In a report one year ago the Inspector General said that it took about nine months to hire a single Border Patrol agent, and about seven months to hire an ICE officer.


The new report noted that while hiring times have improved there are still “significant delays.” It attributed those delays to not enough hiring staff and internal systems needed to hire staff efficiently


Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com