Proposal could put contractors on the border

The U.S. Border Patrol could dramatically increase its presence on the nation’s southern frontier by adding hundreds of private contractors to its ranks, according to a proposal presented to Congress last month.

DynCorp International, a Virginia-based military security firm, said it could train and deploy 1,000 private agents to the U.S.-Mexico border within 13 months, offering a quick surge of law enforcement officers to a region struggling to clamp down on illegal immigration.

Currently, the company manages an army of private security agents deployed across the world in support of U.S. missions, including several former Border Patrol agents hired to help secure the Iraqi border.

“We could provide highly qualified people to the Border Patrol quickly,” company spokesman Greg Lagana said. “It’s kind of like a temp service in that there are no obligations for long-time work.”

The offer comes in the middle of a nationwide Border Patrol hiring push that is expected to swell the agency’s ranks by 6,000 new agents before the end of 2008.

That same year an equal number of National Guard troops stationed along the border are set to end a two-year support mission with the agency, dubbed Operation Jumpstart.

So far, the idea has received a tepid response from officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who say their hiring efforts are on schedule.

“That’s not even something the Border Patrol would consider,” said Ramon Rivera, a Washington-based spokesman for the agency. “We are on track (for hiring) and should be meeting our numbers for 2008.”

But the proposal has gained early support from some Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who introduced a bill last summer that would mandate the addition of 5,000 to 8,000 contract agents.

The bill died in committee, but Rogers may reintroduce it if the Border Patrol fails to meet its hiring goals, his staffers said.

Under DynCorp’s proposal, the company would provide deputized agents, drawn from the ranks of former police officers, who could be used to train new Border Patrol recruits or actively patrol for illegal border crossers, Lagana said.

The company claims these contractors could be trained more quickly, operate at a lower cost and be let go when their contracts expire.

“We’re assuming it would be easier to train people to patrol the American border than to prepare them to work in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Lagana said.

And while DynCorp has established itself with its work abroad, the company has previously provided contractors in support of domestic law enforcement operations, he said.

Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish deputized about 30 DynCorp employees in 2005 to help provide security after Hurricane Katrina.

But critics fear that contract agents would lack the training and local ties of their federally employed partners and could succumb to the temptation of graft and corruption.

Last month, three National Guard soldiers assigned to Operation Jumpstart in Laredo were arrested on suspicion of running an immigrant smuggling operation — a situation that may have been spawned by the temporary nature of their mission, said Robert Lee Maril, a North Carolina-based sociologist who has studied the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley.

“It’s just one example of what can go wrong without proper training,” he said.

And while he disagrees with the DynCorp plan, Maril understands that it stems from a growing national frustration with the government’s border security efforts.

“I’m not surprised the idea has come along,” he said. “But you can’t just take a security guard and put him on the border.”

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Jeremy Roebuck covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.