With the many members of our military looking for jobs why are we not pushing these individuals to fill these roles? Oh i know why because Congress puts pennies towards Border & ICE budgets – PB/TK
Border Patrol may loosen lie-detector use in hiring to meet Trump’s jobs order – Associated Press 8 March 2017
The Border Patrol’s parent agency would exempt many veterans and law enforcement officers from a hiring requirement to take a lie-detector test under a proposal to satisfy Donald Trump’s order to add 5,000 agents, according to a memo released by the agents’ union.
The memo by Kevin McAleenan, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner, calls the polygraph a “significant deterrent and point of failure” for applicants and a recruiting disadvantage against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a separate agency that is responsible for deporting people settled in the US. Ice is under Trump’s orders to hire 10,000 people, and it does not require lie detectors.
The Associated Press reported in January that about two-thirds of job applicants fail CBP’s polygraph, more than double the average rate of law enforcement agencies that provided data under open-records requests. Those failures are a major reason why the Border Patrol recently fell below 20,000 agents for the first time since 2009. Many applicants have complained about being subjected to unusually long and hostile interrogations.
The undated memo lays out a plan for the agency to build a force of 26,370 agents in five years, which would deprive Trump of hitting his target during his current term.
Any waiver of the lie-detector mandate may require congressional approval due to a 2010 law that introduced the requirement to root out corruption and misconduct after an earlier hiring surge doubled the size of the Border Patrol in eight years. McAleenan’s memo is addressed to the homeland security department deputy secretary for approval, suggesting that the Trump administration may not yet back the plan.
CBP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The homeland security secretary, John Kelly, who oversees both CBP and Ice, told reporters on Tuesday in Dallas that he still thinks the polygraph is “a good idea” while acknowledging that it has hindered hiring.
