Behind the recent reports on corruption in Customs and Border Protection

Reports which seek to analyze the CBP as one single agency, therefore, must be carefully scrutinized to avoid confusing apples with oranges, a mix of Border Patrol Agents, CBP officers, and others. This is particularly true with regard to two new reports, one by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the other by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security. Both address crucial issues within the CBP: corruption in CBP and the use of excessive force.

Unfortunately, both reports are ripe for misinterpretation if the unit of organization analysis is not clearly defined within an historical understanding of the culture of these respective agencies. Which agencies are we talking about, in short, and what data have been defined, collected/not collected by the agencies themselves? While the public has every right to feel proud of this new giant federal law enforcement agency under DHS, in fact a closer examination suggests deeper issues which have been carefully ignored, sanitized, or defined in such a way as to exclude the possibility of serious study.

Focusing on the GAO report, made available to the public on 28 August 2013 — the DHS report will be discussed in a subsequent column —  the GAO notes that  the Congressional Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Committee on Appropriations “…required us (the GAO) to review U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s ethics, conduct, and integrity training programs” (Border Security: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Provides Integrity-Related Training to its Officers and Agents throughout their Careers, GAO-13-769R, August 28, 2013, Washington, D.C.). Mandated by the passing of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2013, GAO spent three months conducting this study. This report was foreshadowed by a previous GAO report, in December 2012, “…on CBP’s efforts to ensure the integrity of its workforce” (House Committee Report 112-492 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, 2013).

The intent of both these reports by the GAO, the August 2013 report and the earlier report, is to address and resolve the alarming testimony by DHS officials in 2006, “…that drug-trafficking organizations are attempting to infiltrate the CBP workforce through conspired hiring operations and aggressive targeting of incumbent CBP officers and BP agents.” Since the number of CBP officers and agents has increased significantly in recent years in the CBP, DHS officials are rightly concerned that corruption might also increase given the growing influence of Mexican drug cartels. One of the major solutions to this possibility of rising corruption within the CBP is to define specific categories of corruption and then educate all their agents with “integrity-related programs” designed and overseen by the Office of Training and Development (OTD).

The courses meant to help stem corruption within the CBP are, according to this report, offered to both CBP officers and Border Patrol agents with content relevant to those in the field; CBP supervisors will receive this training throughout their careers and on an annual basis. The CBP officers within the Office of Field Operations also its employees, “…to complete mandatory integrity-related courses at the 2-,5-, and 10-year career points.”

The report concludes that while CBP has not yet finalized its “comprehensive integrity strategy,” it plans to do so, according to CBP Internal Affairs, very soon. These plans were supposed to be finished, according to CBP, by May 2013.

What is left understated is that there is no evidence to suggest that these coursesachieve their objectives in any way, shape, or form. Do Border Patrol Agents and CBP officers who take these classes and on-line courses actually prove to succumb to corruption and to maintain their professional standards? Says the GAO, “We did not evaluate the content or effectiveness of CBP’s integrity-related courses, nor did we determine the extent to which employees comply with training requirements as it was not relevant to addressing our reporting objectives (emphasis added).”

True, it was indeed, “…not relevant to addressing our [their] reporting objectives.” But without such measurements, the entire educational exercise is without merit. This is why, in the public and private sectors, we have “outcome assessments” to measure not just what the objectives of the modules are, but what is actually learned and will, eventually, appear in measurable behaviors.  Should this be any different with regard to corruption in federal law enforcement?

More importantly, this same GAO report documents that while pre-employment polygraph tests are now given some candidates before academy training, no such tests are given to those “incumbent employees,” that is, agents and officers who were admitted prior to polygraph testing. Of further concern, “CBP IA (Internal Affairs) does not have the mechanism to track and maintain data on which of its screening tools provided the information CBP used to determine that applicants were not suitable for hire.”

Finally, with regards to this report and the red flags it raises, CBP established a quality assurance program in 2008 to assure, “…the quality and timeliness of the investigations and to identify any deficiencies in the investigation process.” But five years later this program is still not operable.

What the GAO report fails to detail or mention, because it is not defined as a relevant objective, is that the best single assurance against corruption throughout the CBP is not on-line modules, but the professional bonding that must take place at the training academy between and among agents. It is at the academy that all agents traditionally have been mentally and physically challenged to meet the professional standards of the CBP; it is also at the academy that the socialization process among professionals takes root and continues to grow throughout the professional careers of these men and women. It is these same internalized values and expectations that are ultimately one of the best safeguards against individual corruption. Taking a required ethics module overseen by an on-site supervisor will not go far in instilling professional standards and norms in law enforcement officers.  Just ask the men and women who are required take these tests.

What the GAO report also fails to mention is that the training academy has been cut back from six months to fifty-three days. What is not happening in this short period of time is professional bonding that has in years past helped to minimize corruption. How do we know this? Just take a close look at the professional relationships established at the FBI academy and how long and substantial these professional relationships and the established values persevere throughout law enforcement careers.

This GAO report, by failing to address the issues briefly suggested here, masks real problems and, in effect, continues to expose our federal employees in the CBP to systemic corruption by offering superficial remedies. This GAO report does not demonstrate the increased efficacy of the CBP, as some in the media have reported. Rather, when placed in a historical, organizational, and fact-based context, it reveals vital structural problems requiring public examination and comment.

Robert Lee Maril, a professor of Sociology at East Carolina University is the author of The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border . He blogs at leemaril.com.