Border Patrol Agent Pay?

[OEFvet83]

Not that pay is the most important reason that i'm considering a job with border patrol but i'm a little confused. I've spoken to several agents who have told me that they make a lot more than their base pay. Just so that I understand you get your base pay+any differential pay+ AUO = Salary. Am I missing anything? Thanks

[skasif11]

From what I remember, it's whatever the base pay is (GS5/7) + 25%, that's because they work 5 ten hour shifts/week. 1 hr before patrol, 1 hr after patrol doing admin stuff (from what the BP agents told me after a compacted testing session)

[sap123]

Don't forget COLA, FLSA, and holiday diffs.

[pappabacon]

There are a lot of things that factor in to the pay. Over at honorfirst.com, there is a breakdown that gives a pretty good idea, you also get pay based on your locality among other things.

[SHU]

base pay + sunday pay (double sundays if your lucky)+ night diff+ holiday pay+AUO+45ACT( if your lucky).
You will make quite a bit more than the base salary tables on opm. But in the academy you will only make the base pay for the location of your permanent duty station. After the academy is when all of the above mentioned premium pay kicks in.

[lugonatron]

I heard a lot of times you could work past ten hours, which could kick the percentage of your AUO up. I saw something on the news stating that BP could make 80,000 after three years, another agent told me the same during my board interview.

[ask80]

80000 sounds about right from my buddy who has been a BP for couples years now.... pretty good pay!

[OEFvet83]

Thanks guys!

[irishlad2nv]

I heard a lot of times you could work past ten hours, which could kick the percentage of your AUO up. I saw something on the news stating that BP could make 80,000 after three years, another agent told me the same during my board interview.

Your AUO does not get bumped up if you work over the minimum hours for your percentage. If you work over the min. hours of AUO then FLSA starts to kick in. AUO and FLSA are suppose to reflect "overtime" which BP hardly ever gets. Yes 80K does look good, but most of the border towns that you will work in, you will not want to live near, so be prepared to drive an hour or more away to get to your duty station.

[OEFvet83]

thanks irishlad2nv you answered my second question. My third big question is about my ship date. If anybody has recently been through the hiring process can you please let me know what to expect. I tested in February and everything is checked in CASS except the background check. I don't know if it matters but i rate at a 100 % and I have an active security clearance through the Army. Just a little anxious to ship out like everybody else i guess.

[irishlad2nv]

thanks irishlad2nv you answered my second question. My third big question is about my ship date. If anybody has recently been through the hiring process can you please let me know what to expect. I tested in February and everything is checked in CASS except the background check. I don't know if it matters but i rate at a 100 % and I have an active security clearance through the Army. Just a little anxious to ship out like everybody else i guess.

Your security clearance from the military means squat in the civilian world and yes another BI has to be done on you with DHS.

[soto2635]

nice to see you on the forums already grant

[Solohammer]

thanks irishlad2nv you answered my second question. My third big question is about my ship date. If anybody has recently been through the hiring process can you please let me know what to expect. I tested in February and everything is checked in CASS except the background check. I don't know if it matters but i rate at a 100 % and I have an active security clearance through the Army. Just a little anxious to ship out like everybody else i guess.

I don't know what you mean by "rate at a 100%".

Your clearance for the Military merely provides you with the information you'll need to fill out your forms. Your military clearance granted you access to information classified at a certain level. The clearance which is being run now is a suitability clearance, which is not the same. I wish it were different, but that's the way it is.

Pay. You can't get your AUO above 25%. That's the maximum. You will earn an additional 10% working at night, and 15% by working on Sundays. You will not be certified to work AUO until the beginning of the first complete pay period that you graduate from the Academy and report to your station. How you will be scheduled to work upon reaching your station will vary, I can only speak for my station. Here, you work primarily day shift until you complete the Field Training Program, which is a minimum of twelve weeks. It can be longer here, depending on a variety of factors. Once you are cleared for the field, you'll be assigned to one of four units. The units each work one of four shifts and rotate every four weeks. There, you'll be assigned to a Journeyman for each pay period. You'll ride and work with that Journeyman. There are good Journeymen and bad Journeymen. You've been in the Army, you know how it is. Once you hit your year, you're assigned solo. You're still on probation for another year, keep that in mind. Once you're off probation, you can trade with other Agents and as long as you can find a trading partner, you can stay on whatever shift you prefer.

I hope that helps. Keep in mind, that some of that information is specific to my station and may not be accurate at whatever station you are assigned.

Good luck.

[OEFvet83]

Thanks for the info. I guess I should have been more clear about how I got the 100% figure. After I tested the MHC sent me a letter stating that I "rate" at a 100% because of the 95% I got on the written test plus my 5% vets preference. I was told that they do (or did) take your score into consideration. What you said about the clearance makes a lot of sense but I have had a suitability check (July 2008) before I got on with the TSA which is also DHS. But I know from experience that the government loves its redundancy so I have a lot of patience.

[WJD]

Pay is pretty good!

The FTO program may vary from station to station. I was on a different shift every three to four weeks while on the FTO. Journeyman phase lasted two months. GL9-1 is about 1900 bi-weekly with around 700 in deductions for benefits etc. That is on late days (1 hour of night diff) I work allot of AUO hours so I usually get 150-180 extra top of the 25%. GL-7 was almost 300 less. Working nights with double Sundays should be another 200 per pay check.
In the end it will depend on where you are stationed.

[OEFvet83]

I qualify for GL-7 and I was told that you move to the next grade pretty quickly. Is there a set time or does it depend on your performance?

[sap123]

I qualify for GL-7 and I was told that you move to the next grade pretty quickly. Is there a set time or does it depend on your performance?

Set in stone. Right now a BPAt will go up one grade after 6-6.5 months time in.

[irishlad2nv]

Set in stone. Right now a BPAt will go up one grade after 6-6.5 months time in.

No. Per OPM and agency policy, you do not move to the next pay grade until you have completed at least 52 weeks or 1 year as a GL7. You will not move to a GL-9 after 6 months. I am interested in knowing where this is "set in stone".

[WJD]

No. Per OPM and agency policy, you do not move to the next pay grade until you have completed at least 52 weeks or 1 year as a GL7. You will not move to a GL-9 after 6 months. I am interested in knowing where this is "set in stone".

Sir,
with all due respect you are incorrect. At six months all new trainees will advance to the next pay grade unless they were hired at a GL-9. The only thing that would possibly interfere with this would be if the trainee managed to get his/her @$$ fired before the six month mark. Not at all an unlikely scenario.

[irishlad2nv]

Sir,
with all due respect you are incorrect. At six months all new trainees will advance to the next pay grade unless they were hired at a GL-9. The only thing that would possibly interfere with this would be if the trainee managed to get his/her @$$ fired before the six month mark. Not at all an unlikely scenario.

Ah yes the "accelerated program". Which is not suprising being that the BP academy is 55 days long and yet you are still on probation even after being promoted. That's inventive. I know of several former BPA's that came over to ICE, still on probation from BP and were 9's and had to either take a 5/7 gig with ICE.

Either way, you are open season during probation. I.E. passing spanish.

[SHU]

[QUOTE=Either way, you are open season during probation. I.E. passing spanish.[/QUOTE]

Nobody fails spanish anymore but plenty of people get the fired during their probation.

[november/oscar]

CBP has better pay base salary+ night diff 15% 20% if you work grave yard shift 0001-0800 and Sunday diff which is about time and a half and you get your locality pay which differs from sector to sector you most likely work at an airport, seaport or land bridge on the northern or southern border the airport is boring work but mostly you be in doors in the a/c and have lots of fellow officers around you all the time. Seaports are full of long shore men very shady characters you will go out and meet ships at sea sometimes but mostly inspect containers for contraband if getting shot at is your thing then you should consider the southern border remember that as a federal officer returning fire back into Mexico is considered a declaration of war not a good career move. I made 120,000 last year as a gs11/1 working at the airport overtime is not a problem you get that whether you want it or not and we only work 8 hr shifts everything after 8 hrs is ot a double rate of your base salary so 2 hrs of ot is 4 hrs of base pay. But if you prefer to be out numbered, out gunned and constant kidnappings from Mexican drug cartels then border patrol is for you my friend. Im sure I have spelling and grammar issues here but I just finished a double

[merlin436]

CBP has better pay base salary+ night diff 15% 20% if you work grave yard shift 0001-0800 and Sunday diff which is about time and a half and you get your locality pay which differs from sector to sector you most likely work at an airport, seaport or land bridge on the northern or southern border the airport is boring work but mostly you be in doors in the a/c and have lots of fellow officers around you all the time. Seaports are full of long shore men very shady characters you will go out and meet ships at sea sometimes but mostly inspect containers for contraband if getting shot at is your thing then you should consider the southern border remember that as a federal officer returning fire back into Mexico is considered a declaration of war not a good career move. I made 120,000 last year as a gs11/1 working at the airport overtime is not a problem you get that whether you want it or not and we only work 8 hr shifts everything after 8 hrs is ot a double rate of your base salary so 2 hrs of ot is 4 hrs of base pay. But if you prefer to be out numbered, out gunned and constant kidnappings from Mexican drug cartels then border patrol is for you my friend. Im sure I have spelling and grammar issues here but I just finished a double

One, the base salary for a GS-11 CBPO and BPA is identical. Before that, PA's make GL pay as 05-07-09's...so their base pay is actually more.

Two, how did you manage to make 120K as an 11/01? They must be passing out waivers there, huh?

I'm almost an 11/04 on the northern border and I've yet to meet a comparable PA who wasn't making more than me, all things being equal.

[irishlad2nv]

Nov/Oscar, I assume they don't have a Cap for you guys with OT then? If you are a 11/1 in Miami they your salary is barely 60k, so you mean to say you doubled your salary last year? Interesting. Either way, BPA, ICE-IEA/OI is the way to go with AUO/LEAP. That goes towards retirement. OT does not.

[merlin436]

Nov/Oscar, I assume they don't have a Cap for you guys with OT then? If you are a 11/1 in Miami they your salary is barely 60k, so you mean to say you doubled your salary last year? Interesting. Either way, BPA, ICE-IEA/OI is the way to go with AUO/LEAP. That goes towards retirement. OT does not.

Not true for CBPO's.

The first 1/2 of the cap...currently 17.5K goes towards retirement under COPRA.

[irishlad2nv]

Gotcha. But still, to double your pay?

[flyfrog]

I had heard of other fed LEOs doubling pay, NNSA for instance.

[Solohammer]

Sir,
with all due respect you are incorrect. At six months all new trainees will advance to the next pay grade unless they were hired at a GL-9. The only thing that would possibly interfere with this would be if the trainee managed to get his/her @$$ fired before the six month mark. Not at all an unlikely scenario.

An intern can fail to be promoted if they do not meet certain standards. This is generally the case for interns who are sent home from the Academy injured and are working at the station on light duty. I haven't seen an intern who graduated the Academy fail to be promoted "on time".

The CBPO from Miami who is posting on this thread is correct. They're paid differently, under a different system. OT caps are easier for them to get, if, in fact, they need them. We are paid 45 Act overtime, they are paid 35 Act overtime. The rules are different. 35 Act is double time and 45 Act is only time and a half. 45 Act does not count towards your retirement. I believe the CBPO to be correct on what he has said about how 35 Act does. You can be ordered to remain at work for a double shift as a CBPO, however.(I have many friends and acquaintances who work at the Ports here in El Paso. It's their most common complaint.) That's not the case with the BP.

I don't know where he got the "act of war" bit. I'm fairly well versed in the various laws concerning on duty shootings and I haven't run into that one. If the situation meets the criteria for use of deadly force, then it's authorized. It doesn't matter if one party is in Mexico. (Before this gets started in earnest, I decline to debate the matter with anyone.)

Like any two similar jobs, each has it's pluses and minuses. I like my job. I've even worked at a Port so I know how the other half lives. Each and every applicant has to decide for themselves.

[Solohammer]

Gotcha. But still, to double your pay?

I believe him. I've talked to some of my buddies here. Mandatory double shifts and six day weeks stack up quickly. I've seen BP Canine Agents come pretty close too.

[merlin436]

100K plus as a GS-11/1 CBPO...maybe. In the right port. Then again, OT is rare in a lot of locations. That 120K would be 70-75K in just about any of the ports I've worked.

[november/oscar]

One, the base salary for a GS-11 CBPO and BPA is identical. Before that, PA's make GL pay as 05-07-09's...so their base pay is actually more.

Two, how did you manage to make 120K as an 11/01? They must be passing out waivers there, huh?

I'm almost an 11/04 on the northern border and I've yet to meet a comparable PA who wasn't making more than me, all things being equal.

** ** **** PAY PERIOD HOURS **** 176.00 3,561.28 97,487.11 as of pay period 25 remember that fy extends into fallowing year and ot cap is at 35,000 dont forget holidays at 2x rate dec25 & 26 and newyears day to pp 26 that add the TSP-FERS 307.78 8,446.80 that is money you made just because you didnt take it home dosnt meen you wont get to spend it later on retierment you have to go by what it says on your fers you should have recvied it in the mail if you try to calc on nfc you get the wrong fig your ret will be caculated of that. pa ot isnt 2x and it dosnt start till after 10 hrs cbp is 8hr since we dont get extra 25% base we dont have to work 2 extra hours a day as a gs11/1 those 2 extra hours rep 55.54 x2 =111.08 every x12 because we work 6 day rotate 2 rdo 1,332.96 extra a pay period just do the math i might have no made it to exact 120k but i was in the ballpark and i did'nt even cap last year i stoped taking ot assingments at 32,500.00

[SHU]

A PA can make a lot more than 80k after three years.

[merlin436]

** ** **** PAY PERIOD HOURS **** 176.00 3,561.28 97,487.11 as of pay period 25 remember that fy extends into fallowing year and ot cap is at 35,000 dont forget holidays at 2x rate dec25 & 26 and newyears day to pp 26 that add the TSP-FERS 307.78 8,446.80 that is money you made just because you didnt take it home dosnt meen you wont get to spend it later on retierment you have to go by what it says on your fers you should have recvied it in the mail if you try to calc on nfc you get the wrong fig your ret will be caculated of that. pa ot isnt 2x and it dosnt start till after 10 hrs cbp is 8hr since we dont get extra 25% base we dont have to work 2 extra hours a day as a gs11/1 those 2 extra hours rep 55.54 x2 =111.08 every x12 because we work 6 day rotate 2 rdo 1,332.96 extra a pay period just do the math i might have no made it to exact 120k but i was in the ballpark and i did'nt even cap last year i stoped taking ot assingments at 32,500.00

Well, yeah...for you it works. Though I doubt you're seeing 120K overall in compensation.

Still, you could be in port making 3.5K in OT per year and struggling to make 80K by your figuring. In OFO...it's all about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.

[november/oscar]

Well, yeah...for you it works. Though I doubt you're seeing 120K overall in compensation.

Still, you could be in port making 3.5K in OT per year and struggling to make 80K by your figuring. In OFO...it's all about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.

that is true you have to get the right port miami is a good ot port 80% of budget goes to staffing ft/lauderdale is mando-ing officers on rdo's and so is atlanta i hear.

[november/oscar]

An intern can fail to be promoted if they do not meet certain standards. This is generally the case for interns who are sent home from the Academy injured and are working at the station on light duty. I haven't seen an intern who graduated the Academy fail to be promoted "on time".

The CBPO from Miami who is posting on this thread is correct. They're paid differently, under a different system. OT caps are easier for them to get, if, in fact, they need them. We are paid 45 Act overtime, they are paid 35 Act overtime. The rules are different. 35 Act is double time and 45 Act is only time and a half. 45 Act does not count towards your retirement. I believe the CBPO to be correct on what he has said about how 35 Act does. You can be ordered to remain at work for a double shift as a CBPO, however.(I have many friends and acquaintances who work at the Ports here in El Paso. It's their most common complaint.) That's not the case with the BP.

I don't know where he got the "act of war" bit. I'm fairly well versed in the various laws concerning on duty shootings and I haven't run into that one. If the situation meets the criteria for use of deadly force, then it's authorized. It doesn't matter if one party is in Mexico. (Before this gets started in earnest, I decline to debate the matter with anyone.)

Like any two similar jobs, each has it's pluses and minuses. I like my job. I've even worked at a Port so I know how the other half lives. Each and every applicant has to decide for themselves.

T/Y im not talking about use of force at the border im talking about shots being fierd from mexico into the border you know it came from the mexican side but you dont know who shot it you can not start returning fire back into mexico if you dont know who is shooting at you at that distance you can not call it justified now if your at the p.o.e and you get a hit on a/d thats a diffrent story besides in most cases its mexican millitary helping the cartels cross the rio grande your p2000 40cal is no match for 50 cal mounted on a back of a jeep best to hide behind cover ive heard from former bp agents that some nights you have to responde to activated sensors alone and you will run into similar situations mexican army on mexican side of the rio and the mules carrying the packs on thier heads in the water on bp agent is no match for 5-6 hevily armed mexican millitary they are so corrupted it makes me sick might as well quit the millitary join the cartells.

[november/oscar]

Los Angeles Times
March 12, 2000
Federal Agents Under Siege in the Southwest

DEA, Customs and Border Patrol officers encounter increasing violence from Mexican drug traffickers.

By ESTHER SCHRADER, Times Staff Writer

COCHISE COUNTY, Arizona—When they come looking for him at the shopping mall, federal
drug agent Bernie Minarik slips out a back way. When his wife drops him off at work, she takes a
roundabout route back home in case she's being followed.
But when he discovered a highway flare that Mexican drug traffickers had planted in the gas tank
of his car in an attempt to blow him to bits, Minarik nearly called it quits.
Minarik has been a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Arizona's border country for eight
years, and he didn't take the job expecting it to be danger-free. But he didn't count on the violence seeping
into his home life, on his kid going to school scared, on his wife biting her lip as she watches him
fasten his bulletproof vest every morning.
Violence against federal agents, which used to be rare, is becoming more common along the Southwest
border, where cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs are pouring into the United States from Mexico in ever
greater quantities.
Increasingly, the men and women on the front lines of the drug war are being targeted by traffickers
who outgun them, outman them—and are out to get them as never before.
Violent assaults against federal agents along the Southwest border—ground zero of the biggest drug
trade in the world—soared from 156 in 1992 to more than 500 last year. Since 1994, two agents have been
killed. In 1997 alone, the last year for which detailed statistics are available, agents were shot at 97 times.
They were rammed with cars or trucks 64 times. On 20 occasions, assailants planted bombs.
Nowhere is the escalating threat more pervasive than in southern Arizona, where vast expanses of desert
and a network of back roads leave law enforcement forces more spread out and vulnerable. Through
November 1999, there were 208 documented incidents of violence against federal officers in Arizona.
That's more than in any other border state. As recently as two decades ago, assaults by drug traffickers
on federal agents working the U.S. side of the nation's Southwest border were so rare as to be almost
unheard of. Better to dump the dope and run back to Mexico than to risk time in an American jail, the
smugglers apparently calculated.
But these days, Border Patrol, Customs and DEA agents patrolling the Arizona border have been drawn
into gunfights with traffickers who hang out the windows of their Broncos and spray rounds from AK-47s.
Agents have been pelted with rocks, ball bearings and sharpened metal shards, and have been knifed, beaten
and stalked.
Those like Minarik, who work undercover, are often found out by drug underlords who live in the
same small cities as they do and who have the money and the technology to track their movements,
DEA officials say. Agents listen to plots being hatched against them via cell phones. Their wives use
their maiden names to provide an extra margin of safety. They rotate the cars they use for work.
And despite their increasingly intricate precautions, sometimes they are killed.
In June 1998, four traffickers associated with one of Mexico's most violent drug gangs fatally shot
Border Patrol agent Alexander Kirpnick on a dirt road in Arizona at point-blank range. Four days
later, two Border Patrol agents were shot outside McAllen, Texas, by coked-up heroin traffickers. In
1994, DEA agent Richard Fass was shot dead foiling a methamphetamine buy.
"Even though I used to be a churchgoer, I don't go to church anymore," said Minarik, special agent
in charge of the DEA office in Sierra Vista, a middle-class town about an hour from the
Arizona-Mexico border. "You never know who's going to be there."
Said another DEA agent who works with Minarik: "It's a constant state of vigilance because
everyone knows who you are. It just never stops. You can't go to a Circle K without seeing someone
associated with someone you put in jail. You learn to accept it."
The amount of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana smuggled across the border in this
corner of Arizona is less than in other border areas. Baja California, the base of the Arellano Felix
brothers' notoriously violent drug mafia, has long been a prime conduit of drugs into California.
But it is in remote areas like Cochise County where smugglers, armed and paid by powerful
Mexican organizations, increasingly face off against federal agents on quiet desert roads. Emboldened
because they often outnumber the law officers they confront, and often under intense competitive
pressure from other smugglers, they are more willing to risk attacking U.S. peace officers, officials say.
"People have no clue what's going on down here. It's the Wild West, and there just seem to be
more bad guys every day," said Larry Dever, sheriff of Cochise County, a rocky, mountainous corner
of Arizona that has been adopted by Mexico's drug gangs as a preferred route for moving their
products north.
Dever once regarded his main job as keeping the people of his county safe from one another. But
these days, he said, he spends most of his time helping the more than 600 DEA, Customs and Border
Patrol agents who have flooded into the county to battle the drug trade.
Four exchanges of gunfire a week between U.S. agents and drug smugglers is the norm, officials
say. High-speed chases of traffickers are common. Drug runners are regularly stopped carrying
automatic rifles, and two underground tunnels used to transport drugs across the border were
discovered last year.
In January, Border Patrol and Customs agents chased two Ford Broncos loaded with 2,600
pounds of marijuana 10 miles across the desert from Naco to Palominas as a drug smuggler in one of
the vehicles fired round after round at them with a semiautomatic weapon. No agents were hit.
The next night, Cochise County sheriff's deputy Jerry Sevier came across a pickup that had been
used to run cocaine through a hole in the border fence near Naco. The truck was empty. But on the
front seat was what Sevier interpreted as a message: a fully loaded 45-caliber revolver.
Like most of the law enforcement professionals in Cochise County, Sevier lives in Sierra Vista, a
high desert town that, with its malls, cinema, supermarkets and well-endowed private schools, is
somewhat removed from the seediness of the county's two dusty border towns, Naco and Douglas.
At least that's what Sevier thought a few years ago, before he became a sheriff's deputy. In those
days, he was a computer engineer working at a high-tech firm. He almost never drove into Naco, a
cluster of trailer homes and wooden houses, or Douglas, with its strip of nightclubs. Violent drug
trafficking seemed to have nothing to do with his life.
Then Sevier took this job because he wanted to work in law enforcement. And he learned that the
violence was being hatched by his neighbors down the street.
"Before I became a cop I thought I lived in a nice Arizona town," Sevier said, maneuvering his
patrol car down a sandy border road where he had chased some heavily armed traffickers the month
before.
"When I became a cop I realized, hey, this is my neighborhood. The bad guys are living here too."
For those who work the border, there is no escape from the anxiety. Minarik and his colleagues
work out of a low-slung, nondescript building whose few windows are made of bulletproof glass. The
building is on a side street in Sierra Vista, but the capos of the drug trade know it's there.
At the Border Patrol headquarters in Tucson, about two hours away, the lobby is dominated by a
large plaque draped in black crepe. Engraved on it are the names of Border Patrol officers killed in the
line of duty.
"Warfare along the border has become a lifestyle and a business," Dever said. "The worst is yet to
come. No matter how much we spend, the traffickers can spend more."
Like many places along the border, smuggling has been a way of life for generations in Cochise
County, with its 83 miles of border snaking across rock-strewn desert and windy plateaus. A century
ago it was Chinese workers who made their way across the frontier to work the copper mines. During
Prohibition, the economies of Naco, Douglas and other border towns were powered by bootleg
liquor. And since the 1960s, at least, marijuana smuggling has fueled a thriving illicit economy.
But about a decade ago, the drug underworld upped the ante. That was when successful American
interdiction efforts in the Caribbean began to force as much as three-fourths of the cocaine grown in
Colombia and the other Andean countries to reach the U.S. through Mexico.
Mexican smugglers, who had usually been paid in cash to transport drugs, began taking their cut in
the cargo. As the Mexicans expanded their own wholesale drug business in the United States, their
earnings shot up dramatically, making them significantly richer, more violent and more defiant.
"The stakes are very high. The competition is very fierce among deeply entrenched smuggling
organizations. These guys just have more to lose," said James Woolley, assistant special agent in
charge of the DEA's Tucson office. "The guys we run into have instructions to shoot any resistance
they might encounter. Gun battles and gunfire exchange is becoming the norm rather than the
exception."
Washington has responded to the rising violence by pouring more agents into places like Cochise
County, and arming them with deadlier weapons. Nationwide, the number of DEA agents in border
counties grew 155% between 1994 and 1998. The Border Patrol is increasingly taking a role in the
anti-drug battle, in part because its total number of agents has more than doubled since 1993. The
Customs Service is on the front lines as well, its heavily armed investigators roaming border roads in
search of "mules" loaded down with drugs.
Critics of the buildup decry what they call the militarization of the border, and point out that it has
done nothing to stem the growing tide of drugs headed for American cities and towns.
"What we have on the border is a slippery slope of more use of military-style practices and
equipment by these agencies, and for what?" said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the New York-based
Lindesmih Center, a drug policy research organization that has consistently criticized the drug war.
"The cocaine, heroin and other drugs just keep coming."
Even those who insist the buildup is necessary recognize it's easier to say you're getting tough on
the border than to do actually do it. The Border Patrol has not been able to recruit people fast enough
to keep up with congressional mandates. According to a December report by the General Accounting
Office for the three-year hiring period ending Sept. 30, 1999, the Immigration and Naturalization
Service had a net hiring shortfall of 594 agents. In fiscal 1999, failure and dropout rates among Border
Patrol agents were higher than ever before, the GAO found.
"It's difficult to get [agents] to come in," said David Aguilar, director of the Border Patrol's Tucson
sector office. "A lot of times we hire the people, we train them, they look at the place, they look at
Douglas, Ariz., and they change their minds."
Agents on the front lines say they need all the help they can get. But they recognize the deadly calculus
of which they are part: The more heavily armed agents that Washington stations in one area of the
border, the more people the trafficking organizations, with their seemingly endless resources, hire and arm
to fight back.
"The drug smugglers seem to be of the mind-set that they don't want to be deterred by the increased
interdiction effort that we've mounted in the last two years," said Woolley of the DEA.
"We are at war, and we're experiencing the consequences of that war in terms of violent encounters,
and I only see that increasing. A lot of the drug dealers wear bulletproof vests now. They are prepared
to battle, and they are prepared to win."
Lee Morgan is a big man who favors cowboy boots and belts with massive buckles. He has been
working the border for the federal government since 1974, first with the Border Patrol and now as a
special agent for the Customs Service. He remembers when he could pull over a truck that he knew was
loaded with illicit drugs and the driver would stop, get out and put up his hands.
"Now you put red lights on a loaded vehicle, he's gonna run. And more than likely, he's gonna shoot,"
Morgan said. "They use their vehicles as weapons."
Morgan said that more than half of the agents he supervises at the Customs office in Douglas have
had to use their weapons or have come under fire in the last year. The other half have been assaulted
in some other fashion.
Two years ago, his agents were being stalked by drug traffickers so frequently that Morgan
decided he'd had enough. He trailed one known trafficker who had been driving close behind one of
his agents for weeks. By asking about him around town, he tracked down the trafficker's address: a
spacious house on a winding street in Douglas. Then he talked to the U.S. Attorney's office and got a
warrant for his arrest on charges of intimidating and threatening a federal officer.
The trafficker has been a fugitive, apparently in Mexico, ever since.
"That's the way it goes down here," Morgan said. "At home, we live in glass houses down here. At
work, we never know what's gonna happen to us or what kind of shape we're gonna be in at the end
of it."

[Solohammer]

T/Y im not talking about use of force at the border im talking about shots being fierd from mexico into the border you know it came from the mexican side but you dont know who shot it you can not start returning fire back into mexico if you dont know who is shooting at you

You can't return fire if you don't have a target anywhere. Not just at the border.

at that distance you can not call it justified

If I have a suspect whom is shooting at me and he meets the criteria for engagement with the weapon I have (I carry an M4) then I will return fire. What's behind and around the target definitely come into consideration.


now if your at the p.o.e and you get a hit on a/d thats a diffrent story

To me a/d means accidental discharge. I don't understand how you're using it here. Some clarification?


besides in most cases its mexican millitary helping the cartels cross the rio grande your p2000 40cal is no match for 50 cal mounted on a back of a jeep best to hide behind cover ive heard from former bp agents that some nights you have to responde to activated sensors alone and you will run into similar situations mexican army on mexican side of the rio and the mules carrying the packs on thier heads in the water on bp agent is no match for 5-6 hevily armed mexican millitary they are so corrupted it makes me sick might as well quit the millitary join the cartells.

I'll agree with you on those points. Your truck won't even provide cover vs. a .50 cal. It barely provides cover vs. .223 and .308.

That's a nice article. A bit sensationalized, but a good read nonetheless. Is this the norm? No. It's actually not typical. The blue suiters get it here too, my friend. They get followed home and harassed just like everyone else. (Why? Because the Ports catch literally tons more dope than the BP or anybody else for that matter.) We all get it. CBPO, BPA, DEA SA, ICE SA, SO, PD, you name it. It's just life on the southern border as usual. It's a possibility one needs to take into account when deciding on a career in Law Enforcement anywhere, not just at the southern border.

[merlin436]

That's a nice article. A bit sensationalized, but a good read nonetheless. Is this the norm? No. It's actually not typical. The blue suiters get it here too, my friend. They get followed home and harassed just like everyone else. (Why? Because the Ports catch literally tons more dope than the BP or anybody else for that matter.) We all get it. CBPO, BPA, DEA SA, ICE SA, SO, PD, you name it. It's just life on the southern border as usual. It's a possibility one needs to take into account when deciding on a career in Law Enforcement anywhere, not just at the southern border.

+1

PA's had a shooting last year on the NNY border which directly lead to an off-duty altercation where a CBPO just walking down a sidewalk ended up trading punches with one of the dirtbag's pals who was just itching to go with anybody connected to the border.

One needs to keep his head out of his @$$ everywhere. Most people just see the badge and the gun. It's not only the stuff that you find that'll follow you home, it could be anything found by anybody within miles of you too.

[marcvann23]

So if I'm understanding correctly BPA's are guaranteed to get AUO for 50 hour weeks, with FLSA kicking in over 50? And CBPO's get double time for OT but OT hours are dependent on the port you are assigned to? I gotta go with the guaranteed money myself. I dont know if I would wanna work 176 hours in a 2 week period, regardless of the money because I couldn't enjoy it.

[SHU]

So if I'm understanding correctly BPA's are guaranteed to get AUO for 50 hour weeks, with FLSA kicking in over 50? And CBPO's get double time for OT but OT hours are dependent on the port you are assigned to? I gotta go with the guaranteed money myself. I dont know if I would wanna work 176 hours in a 2 week period, regardless of the money because I couldn't enjoy it.

The two jobs are incredibly different in mindset and duties. You will be able to pay your bills in either job. The type of work you want to do should decide which job you try to land. Not the money.

[madchiken]

So if I'm understanding correctly BPA's are guaranteed to get AUO for 50 hour weeks, with FLSA kicking in over 50? And CBPO's get double time for OT but OT hours are dependent on the port you are assigned to? I gotta go with the guaranteed money myself. I dont know if I would wanna work 176 hours in a 2 week period, regardless of the money because I couldn't enjoy it.

AUO is not guaranteed. You have to work it to keep it and agents are audited every few pay periods to see if they keep their 25% or if they need to be dropped to 20% or 15%. etc.. Most agents easily stay at 25%. FLSA kicks in after about 83 or 84 hours in a pay period. Some agents might work a 100 hour pay period, some might work 130+. It all depends on whats going on, if they do alot of casework, or if they are on a detail.

As stated. don't decide on a career based soley on how much money you think you're going to make.