The U.S. Doesn't Need More Patrol Agents on the Border

Since he was on the presidential campaign trail, President Trump has had an obsession with immigration, specifically with regards to border security. Trump already tried building his infamous wall on the border, a wall that will do next to nothing to benefit the United States. But for Trump, building a huge wall on the border is not enough. He wants to make sure there are more border patrol agents making sure that the border stays safe. In January, Trump signed two executive orders to hire 5,000 more border patrol agents and 10,000 more agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Trump might put on this show about how we need more border patrol agents, but the truth is that we don't need more. That's not just my opinion. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a policy memo saying that very thing:

Neither CBP [Custom Border Protection] nor ICE could provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the 15,000 additional agents and officers they were directed to hire (DHS, p. 4).

If that were not enough, let us consider the amount of work that border patrol agents actually do. Back in 1986, the average border patrol agent was making 42 apprehensions a month. By 2016, that figure fell to two apprehensions a month.

Source: Custom and Border Protection (see here and here)

The fact that less apprehensions are being made per agent is not a surprise. Since 2006, there has been a net decrease in Mexican immigrants coming to the United States. Having less to do compounds the personnel issues that exist within the CBP. In its recent policy analysis, the Cato Institute outlines how CBP border patrol agents are more likely to get fired than other federal law enforcement agents. In addition to the retention challenges, CBP also has considerable hiring challenges, as are illustrated in the Brookings Institution June 2017 policy paper on the topic.

We can get into more indirectly related topics, such as how illegal immigrants/undocumented workers are nowhere near as bad as Trump makes them out to be, cutting immigration hurts the economy, or the issues behind the CBP's ability to bypass the Fourth Amendment by using the 100-mile border zone. What I will end with, though, is the following. There is no justification to increase the number of border patrol agents on the border. Even if there were, there would need to be considerable reform to address systematic operating issues before having a mass hiring of such agents. In short, the U.S. doesn't need more patrol agents on the border.


11-29-2017 Addendum: This little gem from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows how the resources poured into border patrol agents are not justified from an enforcement standpoint.