More than 50 groups, including African American Ministers in Action, Church World Service, the National Council of La Raza, the National Immigration Law Center, and United Farm Workers penned a letter urging House members to vote against dangerous legislation this week that would ramp up Donald Trump’s deportation force by watering down hiring standards for thousands of new Customs and Border Protection agents, a federal department called “the most corrupt law enforcement agency in the federal government.” As immigrant rights group America’s Voice notes, “CBP needs more, not less, accountability. The evidence for this conclusion comes from CBP itself”:
“Corruption was endemic following the mid-2000s hiring boom … CBP commissioned an external review of use of deadly force in 2013. The final report found 67 cases of the deadly force used by CBP agents/officers in less than two years. It also concluded that ‘too many cases do not appear to meet the test of objective reasonableness with regard to the use of deadly force.’ In other words, agents are too quick to turn to deadly force.”
Several years ago, Andrew Becker of the Center for Investigative Reporting relied on the same internal CBP document to highlight the array of CBP applicants who admitted to significant and troubling crimes during polygraph tests as part of their hiring process. Among the disturbing parts of Becker’s Daily Beast story include:
“One admitted to kidnapping and ransoming hostages in the Ivory Coast. Others said they had molested children or committed rape. And one, as he prepared for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, contemplated assassinating President Barack Obama. These are among the thousands of applicants who have sought sensitive law enforcement jobs in recent years with the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection.”
“Watering down CBP hiring standards through polygraph loopholes is dangerous and risks employing CBP officers and agents who jeopardize national security and public safety,” said the letter to Congress, “compromising the largest law enforcement agency in the country.”
While there is ongoing debate about the scientific validity of polygraph exams, a former CBP official credits the tests with screening out applicants who eventually admitted “to committing serious criminal offenses, including drug smuggling, rape, and infanticide, or confessed to seeking employment as infiltrators paid by transnational criminal organizations or cartels. We would not have caught hundreds of these applicants without a polygraph examination,” wrote James Tomsheck, a former Secret Service agent and assistant commissioner of CBP for internal affairs under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Instead of taking shortcuts and relaxing standards, CBP needs a drastic overhaul when it comes to accountability and oversight. The dozens of people who have been murdered at the hands of CBP agents show that it’s really not refugees who need the “extreme vetting”—those folks already go through a vigorous two-year screening process—but instead the federal immigration agents who have consistently been shown to engage in excessive force, sexual misconduct, and bribery.
“The idea of relaxing standards and undermining accountability for arguably the largest and the most corrupt law enforcement agency in the federal government is appalling,” said America’s Voice executive director Frank Sharry. “And the idea of Democrats voting for it alongside enforcement-only Republicans is outrageous”:
The Trump Administration has “unshackled” CBP and ICE agents to terrorize immigrants throughout America. DHS is engaged in a barely-disguised effort to deport millions and to remake the racial and ethnic composition of America. If they succeed, surely this will go down in American history as one of our darkest chapters. Those who care about their place in history would be wise to get on the right side of it.