By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON- Hiring 2,000 new agents next year could push the U.S. Border Patrol to its limits in training and managing its ranks, Bush administration officials testified Tuesday.
Previously, Homeland Security Department officials have questioned whether the Border Patrol could handle the new agents, as Congress mandated in an intelligence reform law last year and re-approved last week by the House.
On Tuesday, training officials said it is possible _ but warned that the new hires would not come without added costs.
The 2,000 new agents would come close to making out what the Border Patrol could hire “without significantly going on the other side of risk management,” said Thomas J. Walters, assistant commissioner of training and development at Customs and Border Protection.
“But we can do it,” Walters testified at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing.
The White House has asked for funding to hire 210 new agents in the 2006 fiscal year. Additionally, President Bush earlier this month signed an $82 billion Iraq spending bill that would pay for 500 more agents.
About 11,000 agents patrol the nation’s 8,000 miles of land and coastal borders. The Border Patrol stopped 1.1 million illegal immigrants from entering the United States last year, but critics have estimated that as many as 2 million more slipped past agents whose numbers were stretched too thin to stop them.
A study released Tuesday by Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, indicates the Border Patrol is not only vastly understaffed, but lacks needed technology. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the department’s funding, called on Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff in a May 19 letter to quickly develop a border security strategy.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council union, reminded lawmakers that the 2,000 would mark only the first step in hiring 10,000 new agents over the next five years, as Congress mandated.
“I really think that’s a minimum figure if we want to secure our borders,” Bonner testified.
Getting the new agents trained and on the ground could take between a year and 18 months, and would cost up to $179,000 per agent, Walters said. Moreover, the Border Patrol’s training facility in Artesia, N.M. would need dramatic renovations _ for dormitory and sewage capacity _ to house the new agents, said Director Connie L. Patrick.
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On the Net:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection: http://www.cbp.gov