Meanwhile in Artesia, the Ramp Up is Huge

Joining the Patrol
Border agency, recruits both face hurdles in training

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Jul. 1, 2006 12:00 AM

ARTESIA, N.M. – Susana Morales squinted through the sight of a U.S. Border Patrol-issued automatic rifle for the first time as the heat rose up in shimmering waves from the shooting range.

The young mother, one of about 570 cadets in the Border Patrol’s academy in Artesia, is an ideal applicant: minority, female and former military.
The academy is in the midst of a massive hiring push to meet President Bush’s mandate to put 6,000 new agents in the field by 2008. About 2,500 of those agents will be sent to Arizona’s border with Mexico.

The Border Patrol faces several challenges at its only training base. The number of new hires is unprecedented, and critics have expressed concern about the agency’s capability to properly train and screen applicants. The agency also has a high dropout rate, with only one in 30 applicants making it through the 19-week training course, the longest law enforcement preparation school in the federal government.

The academy was moved to this small town in southern New Mexico from centers in Georgia and South Carolina in 2004 and has several major construction projects under way as it is pressured to get agents into the field.

On the shooting range, Yuma native Morales, 27, squeezed off five rounds, grazing the lower left and right of the target and hitting once dead in the center.

Like many new recruits, Morales thought about quitting the academy and going home to her 4-year-old, who kept asking when Mommy was coming home.

“It was much harder than I expected,” she said of the academy just days from graduation, “But I’m happy that I stayed.”

Major growth

The Border Patrol has ramped up staffing since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, growing into one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies in the country. Fifteen years ago, the agency had about 4,000 agents. Now, the ranks have swollen to more than 11,780.

With national attention focused on illegal immigration, President Bush in May announced plans to add 6,000 agents during the next two years. The push is already under way, with the agency projecting 9.3 percent growth by the end of the fiscal year in October, said Maria Valencia, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman.

Border Patrol officials said consolidating the training at one facility would be more efficient. They also said the terrain and climate in New Mexico was more in line with the type of environment agents would face along the Southwestern border.

But Border Patrol officials are struggling to accommodate the volume of recruits in Artesia, a town of about 15,000 people roughly 240 miles southeast of Albuquerque. Federal officials have built temporary housing while a $38 million barracks facility is under construction, and they are working on expanding the gym and building an indoor pool.

Charles C. Whitmire, acting chief patrol agent at the academy, said that the growth is a challenge but that officials will be able to accommodate all the recruits sent their way to meet the goal of 6,000 new hires.

“It’s a huge ramp-up that will take a huge amount of money, effort and time,” he said. “We’re breaking new ground here. We’ve never trained this many agents.”

Recruiting push

The agency also has launched a major recruitment campaign, focusing on the North and Midwest. They raised the age limit for applicants to 40 from 37 and are heavily targeting former military personnel, Supervisory Agent Lorenzo Hernandez said.

Officials also are carefully orchestrating a media campaign, opening up the academy to controlled tours to get the message out about the need for more agents.

During an earlier hiring boom in the mid-’90s, the Border Patrol had a series of embarrassing cases of hiring agents with questionable backgrounds, including criminal records. Despite recent reports of corruption, including the suspected involvement of a former Arizona agent in an FBI cocaine sting, officials said they have improved the background-check process and will thoroughly vet new recruits.

Hernandez, a recruiter, said getting a diverse mix of applicants is “the toughest challenge by far.” Although the agency does well recruiting bilingual Hispanics – just over half are Latino -less than 1 percent of the workforce is Black or Asian. Only about 5 percent are women.

Morales said the decision to sign up for the patrol wasn’t easy. Her husband had argued that a Border Patrol job, which involves logging long hours in dangerous terrain, was no place for a woman. But, she said, he eventually came around and is proud of her. She had heard of Hispanic agents facing a backlash for going into the Border Patrol but hasn’t seen that firsthand, she said.

“To me, it’s just a job,” she said, “And it’s a job that has to be done.”

Staying on

The Border Patrol historically has struggled to retain agents. Some have complained about the starting pay, about $30,000 to $34,000, depending on experience. The job is demanding and sometimes frustrating, with some agents reporting sitting in fixed positions for hours at a stretch or catching the same undocumented immigrants over and over again.

The attrition rate in 2004 was 6 percent, but dropped to 4 percent in 2005. Valencia said officials are projecting a 5.25 percent loss this year.

“The biggest trick is going to be, ‘How are you going to hang onto people?’ ” said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the uni*n that represents field agents across the country.

Morales, who spent five years in the Navy before joining the Transportation Security Administration, said she was drawn to the Border Patrol because it was an outdoor job, promising a “little more excitement.”

She struggled through the physical portion of the academy, saying it was tougher than boot camp. When she arrived, she was far from making the cutoff for the physical requirements. Agents are required to run 1.5 miles in 13 minutes. She initially came in more than 3 minutes over, but left 20 pounds lighter, making the time with 12 seconds to spare.

Her first day on the job in the agency’s bustling Tucson Sector is scheduled for Thursday. She said she was looking forward to a short break before starting the job, to have some time with her son.

“I just kept saying, ‘I can do this,’ ” she said, with a broad smile. “And I did.”