Federal Manager's Daily Report

In the latest of a series of reports about under-staffing at the Border Patrol, GAO has said that shortages are requiring the agency “to make decisions about how to prioritize activities for deployment given the number of agents available.”

In House testimony, GAO has said that even though the agency has a minimum set in law of 21,370 agents, it has long been below that level, with 19,400 as of last September. A January 2017 executive order called for the hiring of 5,000 additional agents; the Border Patrol plans to have 26,370 by the end of fiscal year 2021.

The Border Patrol faces problems in both recruitment and retention as it tries to meet such goals, GAO said. It said that over 2013-2016, the agency hired on average only523 agents per year while experiencing a loss of an average of 904 per year.

The agency is facing challenges including competition with other state, and local law enforcement for applicants. Just within DHS, GAO said, the Border Patrol is at a disadvantage compared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement–which is also planning to hire additional law enforcement personnel–“because CBP’s hiring process requires applicants to take a polygraph examination, Border Patrol agents are deployed to less desirable duty locations, and Border Patrol agents generally receive lower compensation,” it said.

Even among sectors of the Border Patrol itself, “some stations may be comparatively more understaffed than others because of recruitment and retention challenges, according to officials. Generally, sector officials said that the recruitment and retention challenges associated with particular stations were related to quality of life factors in the area near the station–for example, agents may not want to live with their families in an area without a hospital, with low-performing schools, or with relatively long commutes from their homes to their duty station. This can affect retention of existing agents, but it may also affect whether a new agent accepts a position in that location.”