Fox:	President Bush wants 18,000 Border Patrol Agents (BPAs) by the end of September 30th, which will require the employment of 4,000 agents within the next six months.
Fact:	The hiring goal is to be accomplished by the end of calendar year 08(end of December; 9 months). There are currently (as of March 15th) 15,852 Border Patrol agents on board.

Fox:

The employment of 18,000 Border Patrol agents will be difficult without the Border Patrol relaxing the standards for employment; such as the entrance exam, which has been lowered from the 85th to 70th percentile.

Fact:

The United States Border Patrol has not lowered the entrance exam score. The qualifying score to be hired by the Border Patrol has always been 70 percent and remains 70 percent today. The entrance exam consists of logical reasoning, artificial language (for persons who are not fluent Spanish speakers), and an assessment of job-related experiences. These elements were in place well before the Border Patrol’s current recruitment efforts.

Fox:

What the agency is looking for, but not necessarily requiring, is a high school diploma or a passing score on a General Education Development test (GED).

Fact:

Many people, both within and outside the Border Patrol have been under the impression that Border Patrol historically required a high school diploma or GED. The fact is there has never been a high school or GED requirement to be hired by the Border Patrol. When the Border Patrol first began to recruit, many of the most qualified potential applicants were WWI veterans and men who had been raised on ranches along the Southwest Border. In order not to exclude well-qualified applicants from joining the Border Patrol, the high school diploma requirement was intentionally left out. Instead, the Border Patrol has depended on qualifications rising from a combination of experience and education and a series of tests, starting from the Border Patrol entrance exam and continuing through Academy and Post Academy training. An applicant for a GS-5 Border Patrol Agent appointment must be able to demonstrate one year of full-time employment at the GS-4 or equivalent level. An applicant for a GS-7 Border Patrol Agent appointment must have one year of full-time employment in a Law Enforcement position or hold a four-year college degree. The complete hiring matrix consists of a single scope background investigation (SSBI), the written examination, medical and drug screening, pre-employment physical fitness test, and the Oral Hiring Board (which is conducted by uniformed Border Patrol agents).

Fox:

The Border Patrol no longer uses the FBI as the agency charged with conducting background investigations.

Fact:

Many Federal employers, like the Border Patrol use a mix of contract and civil service investigators to perform background checks. Based on those investigations, as well as reviews of various databases, a separate team of government adjudicators makes the final determination on suitability for each and every employee. A review of agency records indicates that OPM, not FBI, conducted investigations for applicant BPAs prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Customs employed contact investigators. As the demand for background investigations has increased, it would be unreasonable to ask the FBI to assume this duty in addition to their priority mission. The FBI does provide some support to our efforts, including conducting some initial checks and providing other information they may have on any of our applicants. We have not compromised our investigations. We conduct the same thorough investigations, and we have access to the same databases as the FBI.

Fox:

With the exception of the language program, the Border Patrol Academy has been reduced from 81 to 55 training days.

Fact:

Prior to the implementation of the current 55-day basic Border Patrol Academy, students received 81 days of instruction, which included the Spanish language program. Critiques from graduating trainees and staff members indicated that “native” speakers received little or no value from the hours of Spanish language instruction. The Border Patrol Academy designed and implemented the new 55-day Border Patrol Academy and the 40-day Task Based Language Spanish Immersion Program. This logical, and more efficient, restructure of the basic academy allows all students to focus on critical legal and operational academic requirements during the initial 55 days of training. This includes law/operations, driving, firearms, and physical techniques, which all remain the same, minute for minute, hour for hour. The Task Based Language Spanish Immersion Program allows “native” speakers the opportunity to return to their stations eight weeks prior to their “non-native speaker” classmates. Non-Spanish speakers will remain at the Academy to complete the Task Based Language Spanish Immersion program. This new Spanish program uses the most modern second language acquisition methodologies and was developed, in part, by international experts in that field. Experts from the Universities of Maryland and Hawaii helped the Border Patrol Academy and Office of Training and Development staff put together a highly effective language training program. The new configuration allows trainee agents to focus their learning ONLY on Spanish, without conflicting learning priorities, such as law and Border Patrol operations. Finally, the 55-day basic schedule, combined with the 40-day Spanish Immersion Program, totals 95 training days, which is fourteen days longer than the previous 81-day academy. By the time Border Patrol Interns have completed the Academy, Post Academy Training, and the Field Training Program, the hours spent on enforcement training is greater than what was provided in the past.

Fox:

Border Patrol agents, upon graduating from the Academy, are not suited for the job, and they are not receiving the required training.

Fact:

Interns receive the same amount of training the Academy offered in the previous 81-day format, which is now further supplemented by a 12-week National Field Training Officer Program, and a minimum of two months on-the-job training with a journeyman level agent during which the interns’ performance will be evaluated. Furthermore, the interns’ performance will be monitored by both journeyman agents and supervisors through the 24th month of internship. The National Field Training Program (NFTP) and the new Post Academy Training Program (PATP) were developed simultaneously, and are consistent in content. When Academy graduates begin their PATP, they continue to receive instruction in Law, Operations, and Spanish as well as a variety of newly developed, highly interactive, web-based courses for a period of 28 weeks in part one, and 10 weeks in part two of the Post Academy Program. The new PATP is twice as long in duration as the old program. A few of the new courses include Anti-Terrorism, Fraudulent Documents, Vehicle Stops, Gang Awareness, and Cultural Awareness. Interns are administered seven unit exams covering 25 courses. Interns are required to pass each exam with a minimum of 70%. Failure to successfully pass an exam after two attempts will result in automatic termination. After successful completion of part one of Post Academy, the interns must complete 10 interactive decision based scenarios. Each decision is recorded and instructors can evaluate interns on 11 different categories, and two critical error fields, including officer safety. These evaluations along with their “part one” exam scores, and Conduct & Efficiency evaluations, will be forwarded to deciding officials who review the intern’s suitability for continued employment. These reviews are conducted at the 12th and 20th month of employment by management personnel at the station and sector headquarters level.

Fox:

The high volume of information taught to Border Patrol agents while they are in the Academy effects retention.

Fact:

There is no evidence to indicate that the volume of information effects retention. The 55/40 Academy training format has been in place since October 2007. The attrition rate for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2008 (October through December) averaged 25.4%. The attrition rate for the same time period the previous year, under the old training format, was 26.2%. These figures compare to an average attrition rate of 27.5% from 2000 through 2007.

Fox:

Border Patrol agents are not ready to perform the required skills upon graduating from the Academy, which requires the responsibility of carrying a badge and a gun, vigilance, and adherence to a moral code.

Fact:

The Academy provides the field with new graduates who have demonstrated they have the basic skills to enable them to become fully deployable Border Patrol Agents. It is the duty of the field training officers, post academy instructors, and veteran agents in the field to either help them develop, or to identify if they will not be suitable for continued employment. This is why the Border Patrol maintains a probationary period that includes ongoing testing and evaluation. In fact, Border Patrol Agents today are on probation and in this development process for two years, as opposed to the one-year probationary program in years past

Fox:

One-half of the agents along the Southwest Border will have less than two years of service by October 1st.

Fact:

Nobody will deny that the ratio of veteran agents to interns is a matter of concern to the Border Patrol, though the true numbers are not as dire as what has been reported. Projected staffing levels minus those agents employed in FY06 estimate that 43% of the Border Patrol agents on the Southwest Border will have less than two years in-service experience by the end of FY08. Given this projection, approximately 57% of the Border Patrol agent staffing level along the Southwest Border will have more than two years of in-service experience. Even at 57% with more than 2 years service, the ratio is a concern, which further justifies the need for the more efficient Academy training that has been instituted, that will allow Spanish speakers to report to the field and begin "learning the line" sooner, and also supports the rationale for improved Post Academy and Field Training Program elements combined with a longer training and evaluation period for interns.

Conclusion
According to the Department of Justice’s 2004 National Institute of Justice Report, "Continued growth in hiring may not be sustainable at recent rates. By 1999, more than half of actively hiring agencies had difficulty finding enough qualified applicants."

The Border Patrol has not been immune from the effects of this trend. While the Border Patrol has had to expand its recruiting vision and resources, the Academy standards and requirements have not been diminished. Interns/trainees are receiving as many core curriculum hours as with the previous curriculum. The changes that have been made were made in order to eliminate injuries, logically re-structure training, eliminate unnecessary training, and incorporate modern training techniques.

Many of these issues were frequent complaints made by journeymen agents. Below are some examples of the steps taken to improve the Academy training curriculum.

• Installed railway cars for interactive Train Check instruction
• Consulted with internationally recognized CBP Occupational Safety and Health exercise physiologist to develop and implement a U. S. Border Patrol Standardized Physical Conditioning Program (SPCP)
• Consulted with internationally recognized conditioning experts, to include the United States Marine Corps
• Modern Radio Operations laboratory
• Modern Enforce/Alien Processing laboratory
• Added more scenario based training (highly requested by trainees)

The Academy considers Border Patrol sectors their "customers," and maintains an open line of communication with them. Both cooperate to add or delete unnecessary content. Some examples of this cooperation and coordination are demonstrated by a state of the art radio laboratory, Enforce laboratories, Outlook e-mail access, and the addition of CATS and COSS training.

The United States Border Patrol Academy is confident that the Basic Training Program is as relevant, modern, and practical as it has been at any other time in the history of the Border Patrol. Office of Border Patrol and the Academy remain committed to ensuring that new agents continue to receive this same high level of training throughout the continuing evolution of the training process.