Photo: Rebekah Zemansky / Shutterstock Image: Rebekah Zemansky/Shutterstock.com
A report from the CBP provides the kinds of details on disciplinary actions against its employees that rarely are shared publicly, including revealing that its investigations into allegations of misconduct increased by 7 percent in 2020 over 2019 to more than 7,100, 80 percent of which were initially identified as potential criminal, serious, or administrative misconduct.
“While this is a substantial number of allegations, it is important to note that management determined that half of the allegations did not warrant disciplinary action,” says the report, which says that topics of investigations included both on-duty matters such as use of force, to drug and off-duty incidents such as drug or alcohol related misconduct.
It said that of the more than 4,100 disciplinary actions taken during 2020, more than half involved only counseling or reprimands, while 86 tenured employees were fired and 120 were removed during their probationary periods. Suspensions, demotions and other actions accounted for the rest.
However, the agency noted that due to the length of the process, the numbers of investigations for a year do not match up directly with the disciplinary actions.
The report closely follows one from the House Oversight and Reform Committee criticizing the agency for its response to disclosures in 2019 that many CBP agents had participated in employee-only social media accounts containing racist and sexist images and statements. That report found that many of them ultimately received softer discipline that was originally recommended internally.
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