Rush to hire border agents raises concerns about unqualified officers

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A Trump administration plan to hire thousands of border and immigration officers has advocates concerned about a possible repeat of the last hiring binge, which they said was followed by an increase in corruption and misconduct cases.

A report Tuesday by the American Immigration Council pointed to the hiring of 8,000 Border Patrol agents from fiscal 2006 to 2009, and what it called a corresponding surge in corruption cases and complaints against officers at the agency from 2007 to 2012.

“Now the Trump administration wants to repeat history by hiring thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, without introducing the reforms and safeguards needed to avoid the abuses and scandals of the past,” the report said.

President Donald Trump proposed hiring 5,000 border patrol agents and 10,000 ICE officers as part of his sweeping series of executive orders on immigration that included his plan for a border wall, among other proposals.

Customs and Border Protection insisted in a statement Tuesday that it will not lower hiring standards in order to hire the number of officers identified by the president. It also rejected the suggestion that border agents hired during the 2006-2009 surge were worse.

Read more at AZ Capitol Times

Corrie O'Connor