Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has a problem: not enough Americans are willing to carry it out.
The Border Patrol is losing agents faster than it can replace them, putting a question mark over the president’s plan to ramp up the force.
Air and Marine Operations, a separate agency, is also struggling to find pilots and other employees.
“If you know people who are enthusiastic about border security please send them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP),” Ronald Vitiello, the Border Patrol chief, said in an appeal this week. “We’re already behind. We’re not hiring fast enough to keep up with the attrition.”
He spoke at a border security expo in San Antonio, Texas, where other senior officials spoke out about recruitment woes.
Benjamin Huffman, head of the Border Patrol’s strategic planning and analysis, half-joked to an audience that everyone would have to submit five names of potential recruits before leaving.
Trump has ordered the agency to add 5,000 agents to beef up patrols and surveillance in advance of his proposed border wall. But its current 19,000-strong force is already 2,000 shy of a target set during the Obama administration.
Officials said tough screening, especially a lie-detector test, rejected many qualified candidates, and that tough conditions such as living in remote, rugged areas prompted more than 1,000 agents to quit every year.
“Some people just don’t want to live there,” said Randolph “Tex” Alles, acting deputy commissioner of CBP, a 60,000-strong agency that includes Border Patrol. “Hiring challenges are not new. Attracting and recruiting high quality individuals is a challenge for us.”
theguardian.com