Donald Trump is still having some trouble getting his notorious wall along the U.S.–Mexico border built, but as John Oliver explained on Last Week Tonight, Trump doesn’t need the wall to make his mark: Just days after he was inaugurated, he issued an executive order calling for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents. And there’s a big problem with that.
Average Americans may not entirely understand what being a Border Agent entails, because, despite what the over-the-top recruitment material suggests, the job isn’t all about arresting drug traffickers trying to enter the United States. Agents actually divide their time between law enforcement and humanitarian work, like aiding Central Americans who cross the border seeking asylum, for which there is an established legal process. In fact, most of the time, the job is actually pretty boring, Oliver points out, which is something that recruits are not necessarily prepared for.
That makes Trump’s hiring quota all the more worrisome. The agency saw another hiring surge during the George W. Bush administration, when the then-president doubled the quota for border agents from 10,000 to 20,000. Because the agency hired so many new people in a relatively short period of time, new agents’ training suffered for it. “They cut back on Spanish and physical training, so the new standards affected agents’ ability to talk to the people they caught and their ability to catch the people they wanted to talk to,” noted Oliver. “It’s like if the training program at SeaWorld left out putting on a wetsuit and systematically driving carnivorous whales insane. That’s the whole job. Take them away, and you’re left with nothing else.”
Having to hire more agents also forced the agency to cut corners in the screening process, which led to misconduct, both on and off-duty; the department has even had to rewrite its rules about shooting fleeing suspects after multiple incidents. “It does seem to be one of those rules that you shouldn’t have had to write down,” noted Oliver. “If you went to a zoo and there was a giant sign that said, Please don’t finger the armadillos, you would wonder what had happened before that sign went up.”
Despite the Department of Homeland Security questioning whether we even need 5,000 more agents, Trump’s hiring surge is going ahead. We can only hope that Oliver’s more realistic recruitment ad can make sure only the right people apply.
