Homeland Security paid for polygraph exams for more than 2,300 potential hires at Customs and Border Protection even though they’d already admitted to drug use or criminal behavior that would have disqualified them anyway, the department’s inspector general said in a new report this week.
The polygraphs cost $2,200 a pop, meaning the department blew more than $5 million on tests that were irrelevant even before they began, investigators said.
CBP, which oversees Border Patrol agents and the officers who man the official ports of entry, has been struggling to hire agents, with its stringent requirements weeding most applicants out. President Trump’s call for an additional 5,000 agents to be added to the force has only complicated matters.
“Given its plans to hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol Agents, it is important that CBP focus its resources on the most qualified and suitable applicants,” said Inspector General John Roth.
The waste of money and time on applicants who have no chance of serving is likely to inflame concerns on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are questioning whether the Border Patrol needs – or can properly hire – that many new agents.
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