Border Patrol found lacking

In my on-going series of highlighting any instance where people are not doing their jobs this one is extremely problematic. Border Patrol officials have been found to be complacent and inattentive in their duties by undercover investigators. Weak management controls have also been found. Border Patrol is our first line of defense for the security of every U.S. citizen both physically and financially.

As with most jobs in law enforcement, Border Patrol is one of the toughest, and it is, like every law enforcement branch, under-manned. This is nothing new. Everyone claims they want law and order but there just are not enough people willing to put their lives on the line to enforce it.

Government watchdogs have found that thousands of people who shouldn't have been admitted to the United States were allowed in last year because of security lapses at legal border crossings. Granted, not everyone who comes in is a danger to our physical well-being and they certainly are not all terrorists. But some of these individuals are connected with criminal enterprises which is where our financial well-being is threatened most and why the lack of job performance on the part of the Border Patrol is most egregious to the safety of their fellow Americans.

GAO investigators arriving at one point of entry found no border agents in the inspection booth, while at other locations, agents didn't ask for travel documents, according to the report. I, myself, have driven through Otay point of entry and found no border agents in the booth while re-entering the U.S.

The number of inadmissible aliens who managed to enter through official ports of entry in 2006 has not been disclosed by the Government Accountability Office. However, a source who has seen a full version of the report, in which those statistics were included, put the total at 21,000.

The government, for obvious reasons, does not want to release the numbers of how many escaped the attention of Customs and Border Protection. One reason is there is no way to know the actual number so any number they come up with would have to be prefaced as being an estimate. Another reason they don’t release the numbers is they don’t want the taxpayer, who is paying their salaries, to know they are not performing their duty. They don’t want the very people they are supposed to protect to know they are not performing their duty.

Men and women of law enforcement are a special breed of people. They want to see the bad guy put away, as all of us law abiding citizens do, but they alone are willing to strap on a gun and a badge and put their own lives at stake to put those bad guys away. Those of us who sit back in our easy chairs from the comfort of our homes should be shamed for ever casting a bad light on those who are doing their best. I applaud those individuals and give to them my utmost deepest felt respect. It’s the individuals who have sworn to protect the laws and citizens of this great country and turn their backs on us by slacking in their job performance that should be reprimanded to the fullest extent of the law. To allow possible criminals to get into the U.S. because they did not do their jobs is criminal itself.

Those who are conscientiously doing their sworn duty can get very frustrated when they see criminals they have caught and then released by liberal judges or asshole lawyers who defends the criminal and convinces the judge to let the criminal go.

I can understand the frustration that Border Patrol agents feel after two of their own were arrested and put in jail for shooting a known drug smuggler. But that is no excuse for jeopardizing the safety of U.S. citizens.

The Customs and Border Protection's stance is that at busy border crossings, it has to balance security with commerce. This is blatantly putting commerce ahead of safety.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 17,600 Customs and Border Protection officers manning ports of entry, said the agency is understaffed and poorly managed and officers are overworked and not adequately trained. Why can’t we put National Guard to help them? Since Bush can send them to Iraq in the name of keeping terrorists from coming to America then he can certainly send them to our borders in America.

Whether we think the threat is real or not, we cannot afford to assume the threat is not real and slack off on our duties. The U.S. taxpayer deserves to get our monies worth when agents are hired to protect us.