Losing Border Patrol Faster Than They Can Hire

[kadee79]

As the president renewed his call for a border wall, the agency charged with building it is facing a manpower crisis. The Border Patrol is losing agents faster than it can hire them.

The agency is already 2,003 short of what is congressionally mandated and the president ordered it to hire 5,000 more agents.

“It is an employment crisis,” said agent and Tucson union chief Art Del Cueto. “We are losing more agents than we can hire.”



According to a GAO report last year, the Border Patrol is losing 905 agents annually, while hiring only 523. Some are retiring but many with five or 10 years of experience are taking higher-paying jobs in other federal agencies in less remote areas with better schools, health care and job opportunities for their spouses.

Tucson Sector Chief Rudy Karisch acknowledged the problem.

www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/17/border-patrol-brain-drain-agency-losing-more-agents-than-it-can-hire.html

[haapai]

If only the problems mentioned in that article were the only problems.  It's nice to hear poor schools and limited job opportunities for spouses mentioned, but that's hardly a comprehensive list of the negatives associated with being a border control agent.

133 apps and nine months to place tells me that neither the hiring requirements nor the details of the job are being disclosed upfront. 

[grits]

Underpaid, understaffed, and overworked.  Enough said. 

[zibazinski]

Don’t we have a lot of unemployed people? Here are jobs.

[resolution]

The nation is at full employment. They probably need to pay more. At a minimum, it has to be enough to compete with other law enforcement agencies and to support the trailing spouse.

[zibazinski]

Take some able bodied from areas that have unemployment, like Detroit, and put them to work.

[zibazinski]

Jan 18, 2018 6:40:19 GMT -5 resolution said:

The nation is at full employment. They probably need to pay more. At a minimum, it has to be enough to compete with other law enforcement agencies and to support the trailing spouse.

Nation at full employment? Seems to be a lot of people looking for work, so they say.

[midjd]

Who’s “they”?

[resolution]

We are at only 4% looking for work, which is the point where employers have to start raising wages to compete with other employers. There are always going to be some people moving between jobs for various reasons, and there will be imbalances geographically because it takes a lot of time for the population to move to where the jobs are. People are naturally resistant to moving for jobs, and I would expect it to be very difficult to get people to move to a remote location where there are no other jobs available for the rest of the family. It would pretty much set them up for another required move if anything happens to that job.

www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/full-employment

When economists talk about full employment, they don’t mean everybody has a job. And they don’t mean that even the rosiest economic health can cut unemployment to zero. If unemployment falls too much, inflation will rise as employers compete to hire workers and push up wages too fast. To economists, full employment means that unemployment has fallen to the lowest possible level that won’t cause inflation. In the U.S., that was thought to be a jobless rate of about 5 percent — above the December rate of 4.1 percent.

[resolution]

Hmm can't get the edge of the chart unclipped, but you can see full chart in the article.

www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/full-employment

[Miss Tequila]

I would have to believe that there are a lot of people that don't want to move to those areas.  From what I have read, the border in a lot of areas is an extremely dangerous place (The US' own shithole). No way would I put my children at risk by living there, no matter what the salary was. Add in that the pay is lower than other law enforcement agencies and I can see why they can't get or keep people.

[swamp]

Jan 18, 2018 0:42:02 GMT -5 grits said:

Underpaid, understaffed, and overworked.  Enough said. 

The border agents i know make about $80k to $100k.   

[swamp]

Jan 18, 2018 8:53:16 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I would have to believe that there are a lot of people that don't want to move to those areas.  From what I have read, the border in a lot of areas is an extremely dangerous place (The US' own shithole). No way would I put my children at risk by living there, no matter what the salary was. Add in that the pay is lower than other law enforcement agencies and I can see why they can't get or keep people.

The border agents dont' want to stay here.  It's not a shithole, it's generally safe, and the schools are OK.  It's boring and cold.  

People seem to forget we have a really big border on the north that needs patrolling too, and it's generally boring work. 

[swamp]

work.chron.com/salary-law-enforcement-border-patrol-person-3148.html

The pay doesn't suck. 

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 18, 2018 8:56:51 GMT -5 swamp said:

Jan 18, 2018 8:53:16 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I would have to believe that there are a lot of people that don't want to move to those areas.  From what I have read, the border in a lot of areas is an extremely dangerous place (The US' own shithole). No way would I put my children at risk by living there, no matter what the salary was. Add in that the pay is lower than other law enforcement agencies and I can see why they can't get or keep people.

The border agents dont' want to stay here.  It's not a shithole, it's generally safe, and the schools are OK.  It's boring and cold.  

People seem to forget we have a really big border on the north that needs patrolling too, and it's generally boring work. 

I did say "in a lot of areas" not "all" areas.

I don't blame them for not wanting to be in your area, either. It is a frozen tundra up there in the winter! 

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/06/us/politics/undocumented-illegal-immigrants.html

while I do think the northern border also needs to be patrolled to prevent terrorists from entering, our risk of illegal immigration is not from the Canadians.  Based on the NY times article, Mexicans are 6.2million out of 8.56 million illegals (and some of those are flowing up through mexico into the US).  If we want to shut down illegal immigration we need to secure where they are coming from first.  =  Looking at the same chart, Canadians don't even get a mention for the number of illegals.  Trudeau has also opened his arms to illegals so they are much better off in Canada than in the US....

[swamp]

Jan 18, 2018 9:11:34 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jan 18, 2018 8:56:51 GMT -5 swamp said:

The border agents dont' want to stay here.  It's not a shithole, it's generally safe, and the schools are OK.  It's boring and cold.  

People seem to forget we have a really big border on the north that needs patrolling too, and it's generally boring work. 

I did say "in a lot of areas" not "all" areas.

I don't blame them for not wanting to be in your area, either. It is a frozen tundra up there in the winter! 

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/06/us/politics/undocumented-illegal-immigrants.html

while I do think the northern border also needs to be patrolled to prevent terrorists from entering, our risk of illegal immigration is not from the Canadians.  Based on the NY times article, Mexicans are 6.2million out of 8.56 million illegals (and some of those are flowing up through mexico into the US).  If we want to shut down illegal immigration we need to secure where they are coming from first.  =  Looking at the same chart, Canadians don't even get a mention for the number of illegals.  Trudeau has also opened his arms to illegals so they are much better off in Canada than in the US....

There is actually a significant amount of human trafficking, usually Chinese, coming from the northern border.     

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 18, 2018 8:58:46 GMT -5 swamp said:

work.chron.com/salary-law-enforcement-border-patrol-person-3148.html

The pay doesn't suck. 

www.patrooper.com/salary.html

Starting salary for a PA state trooper is $60k, much higher than the starting salary of a Border Agent.    The point of that article was that the pay sucks in comparison to the wages of other law enforcement jobs making it difficult to hire.  Add in the fact that some of the areas they would have to move to are shitholes and I can see why it is difficult to get or maintain people for those positions

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 18, 2018 9:15:39 GMT -5 swamp said:

Jan 18, 2018 9:11:34 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I did say "in a lot of areas" not "all" areas.

I don't blame them for not wanting to be in your area, either. It is a frozen tundra up there in the winter! 

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/06/us/politics/undocumented-illegal-immigrants.html

while I do think the northern border also needs to be patrolled to prevent terrorists from entering, our risk of illegal immigration is not from the Canadians.  Based on the NY times article, Mexicans are 6.2million out of 8.56 million illegals (and some of those are flowing up through mexico into the US).  If we want to shut down illegal immigration we need to secure where they are coming from first.  =  Looking at the same chart, Canadians don't even get a mention for the number of illegals.  Trudeau has also opened his arms to illegals so they are much better off in Canada than in the US....

There is actually a significant amount of human trafficking, usually Chinese, coming from the northern border.     

And yet the Chinese are only 268,000 out of 8.56 million.  Not saying it doesn't happen, but to a much lesser extent than we get flowing up from the southern border. 

I also never said to ignore Canada.  But I believe our bigger risk coming down from Canada would be terrorists, not illegals.  If we want to seriously stop illegal immigration we have to stop it where the largest amount of people are coming from....and that is just not Canada. 

[swamp]

But our local cops start at $40k and they don't have a problem hiring.  

Border patrol is basically two possible jobs:

Southern agent where you sweat to death, get eaten by scorpions, and wrestle with illegals.

Northern agent where you freeze and are bored to death. 

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 18, 2018 9:31:26 GMT -5 swamp said:

But our local cops start at $40k and they don't have a problem hiring.  

Border patrol is basically two possible jobs:

Southern agent where you sweat to death, get eaten by scorpions, and wrestle with illegals.

Northern agent where you freeze and are bored to death. 

Your local cops are from the area and obviously want to live there. I would think it would be much more difficult if you needed a large number of people to move to your area.  If your area needed to hire a lot of cops from out of the area I'm guessing they would not be able to do so for $40k a year.  I was in Montreal last January and I know your weather is similar.  I could not live there and I certainly wouldn't move there for $40k a year.  I wouldn't do it for $100k a year.  I'm sure there is a magic number where I would because the area itself is nice (I wouldn't move to a lot of the southern borders because of safety reasons) but it would have to be a very high number for me to put up with your winters...I can barely handle MY winter and it is nothing like yours.  Now, I would buy a summer house up there because it is absolutely gorgeous in the summer!

[billisonboard]

Jan 18, 2018 7:12:29 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Take some able bodied from areas that have unemployment, like Detroit, and put them to work.

[grits]

Jan 18, 2018 8:54:52 GMT -5 swamp said:

Jan 18, 2018 0:42:02 GMT -5 grits said:

Underpaid, understaffed, and overworked.  Enough said. 

The border agents i know make about $80k to $100k.   

Are these agents patrolling the northen or southern borders of the United States.  It makes a big difference. 

[zibazinski]

I’ll bet we could build high towers with heat and ac that look out over a large area. Staff it with a few guards. They see something, they call for others to deal with the issue.

[wvugurl26]

I have a friend who started his career there. They also work at airports. That's what he did. He jumped to my agency at the first opportunity. And he left about a year ago to go to marshals.

I would believe they have a problem hiring. I bet if I looked up their last survey, morale is in the toilet.

[OldCoyote]

thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/336811-house-votes-to-allow-lie-detector-exemptions-for-border-patrol 

I can see how well this is going to work,, Especially since law enforcement already has an honesty and ethics problem!