[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4440-S4442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KYL (for himself, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Domenici, Mr. 
        McCain, Mr. Gramm, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Abraham, and 
        Mr. Kyl):
  S. 912. A bill to modify the rate of basic pay and the classification 
of positions for certain United States Border Patrol agents, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.


          border patrol recruitment and retention act of 1999

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today with Senator Kay Bailey 
Hutchison to introduce the Border Patrol Recruitment and Retention Act 
of 1999.
  In 1996, the Congress passed unanimously, and the President signed, 
my amendment to the Immigration Reform Act requiring that 1,000 Border 
Patrol agents be hired each year between the years 1997 and 20001. Last 
year, Congress provided the Immigration and Naturalization Service with 
$93 million to hire, train, and deploy 1,000 agents during 1999.
  We have now learned that the INS will not come close to hiring the 
required 1,000 agents during this year; and, in fact, may only hire 200 
to 400. As a result, states that need the increased personnel the most 
will not receive them. Arizona, which itself was slated to receive 400 
new agents, will now receive only 100 to 150 new agents. That's not 
nearly enough. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector apprehended 
60,537 illegal immigrants last month and seized over 28,000 pounds of 
marijuana, an all-time record in both areas. Project that annually and 
then factor in the estimate that 3 times as many illegal aliens 
successfully cross the border than are apprehended. The situation is so 
out of control in Arizona that recently, 600 people attempted to cross 
the border en masse in broad daylight. Some Arizonans are growing so 
anxious about the upsurge of illegal activity in their community that 
they have attempted to take matters into their own hands. Unless 
Arizona is given more federal personnel and resources to get things 
under control, many are worried about how this situation will develop.
  What the INS says is that it is having recruitment and retention 
problems, and so it cannot take on the added personnel at this time. 
Couldn't the INS foresee some of these recruitment issues more than two 
months before now? And couldn't INS do something to correct the problem 
of recruitment?
  We concluded Congress would have to initiate some solutions. 
Therefore, Senator Hutchison and I introduce this bill today to try to 
begin to address some of the Border Patrol's recruitment and retention 
problems. It is not a panacea, and we need to continue to explore 
additional ways of improving recruitment and retention; but it will 
open the debate and will provide for a much-needed increase in salary 
levels for the Border Patrol.
  Currently Border Patrol agents are, for the most part, capped at a 
GS-9 level (currently, only about 20 percent of agents, namely those 
who perform special duties, are raised to the GS-11 level). The Border 
Patrol Retention and Recruitment Enhancement Act would allow all agents 
with a successful year's experience at a GS-9 level to move up to a GS-
11 level. This would enable agents to move from an approximate $34,000 
annually salary to an approximate $41,000 annually salary. And that's 
fair. These agents have a tough time in their assignments. They must 
speak two languages. They deserve a raise.
  The bill would also establish the Office of Border Patrol Recruitment 
and Retention, which would allow the Border Patrol to be more involved 
in recruiting and hiring and will direct the Border Patrol to make 
policy suggestions about ways to improve recruitment and retention. 
Currently, the INS and the Office of Personnel Management are 
responsible for all such activity. We have heard testimony from Border 
Patrol chiefs who say that the Border Patrol has unique and specific 
knowledge about how to enhance these efforts.
  Mr. President, this bill will not solve all of the Border Patrol's 
recruiting and retention problems, but it will be a responsible start 
toward increasing the numbers of agents who will so honorably protect 
our nation's borders.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank Senator Kyl for his 
leadership on this bill that we have just introduced.
  Senator Kyl and I, along with Senators Domenici, Gramm, McCain, and 
Bingaman, have been very concerned about the Border Patrol issue that 
faces our border States. In fact, we were stunned this week to learn 
that though Congress has authorized and authorized funding for 1,000 
new Border Patrol agents that in fact only 200 to 400 are coming on 
line this year.
  Mr. President, that is stunning. That is stunning when you consider 
that last year the Border Patrol apprehended 1.5 million persons 
illegally crossing the border, and fully half of those were at my State 
of Texas. In fact, the McAllen Border Patrol sector, which includes 
Brownsville, Harlingen and McAllen, had the largest number of drug 
seizures of all Border Patrol Sectors in the United States--1,610 drug 
seizures just in that one sector. The drugs apprehended have a value of 
over $410 million. Two Border Patrol agents in the McAllen sector lost 
their lives last year in a raid of a drug trafficker's hideout. It was 
the first time Border Patrol agents had been killed during such a raid.

[[Page S4441]]

  Senator Abraham held a hearing this week, and the Chief of the Border 
Patrol told us that he has not been able to recruit and retain and, in 
fact, is losing 10 percent of the agents. For every one that we are 
bringing on, we are losing two, because our Border Patrol agents are 
capped at a journeymen-9 level. That translates to roughly $34,000 a 
year for an agent that has several years of experience. For an agent, 
that is certainly a job of law enforcement at its toughest.
  Under the bill that we have just introduced, the agents would be 
eligible to be paid at a journeymen-11 level, which is approximately a 
$7,000 increase.
  This pay raise is also consistent with the pay of other law 
enforcement agencies that work along the border. One significant 
problem for the Border Patrol has been that many agents go to work for 
the Customs Service, or the DEA when they reach the cap. So they get to 
their cap, their experience, and they go over to another Federal agency 
that pays better.
  We must solve this discrepancy among Federal agencies in the same 
place that are doing similar kinds of tough duty work for hazardous 
pay. Yet, the Border Patrol is $7,000 less than Customs and DEA agents. 
We must correct this discrepancy if we are going to get control of our 
borders, which are a sieve right now with drugs moving through at an 
alarming rate.
  This is not just a Texas-Arizona-New Mexico-California problem. The 
drugs that come in from our borders go right up into Ohio, Michigan, 
New Hampshire, Oregon--all over our country, because we don't have the 
proper control of our border.
  Mr. President, there is not a higher priority for the Federal 
Government than to have the sovereign borders of the United States safe 
from illegal drugs coming into our country, and most certainly illegal 
immigrants that have not gone through the proper procedures so that we 
know who is coming into our country and what their record is so that we 
have the control that any sovereign nation would have.
  Mr. President, this is an emergency. It is why Senator Kyl and I have 
introduced this legislation today, because we are in a crisis. This is 
a war. It is a war on drugs, and we are losing. We are losing our young 
people in this country. Part of the problem is that we are not putting 
the resources into law enforcement.
  I have to say, Mr. President, that I am disappointed to the maximum 
that our INS has money from Congress and authorization from Congress to 
hire 1,000 agents and they have only been able to come up with 200 to 
400 agents this year. That means we are 600 to 800 short, as we speak, 
from what was allocated this year, and which was given priority by 
Congress. I think the INS needs to make this a priority. We are going 
to give them the pay increases with the bill that we have just 
introduced today.
  Senator Gregg, who has been a strong supporter of our efforts to beef 
up the border, has said he will work with us to reprogram money from 
this year's budget for these pay increases so that we will hopefully be 
able to do this on an expedited basis by October 1 of this year.
  Hopefully, we will be able to retain agents knowing that this pay 
raise is in the pipeline. But, Mr. President, it also takes an effort 
by the INS to make it a priority to fill these slots, because if they 
don't look at a little more creative approach to recruiting, the $7,000 
increase is not going to be enough.
  I am at my wit's end. Senator Kyl, Senator McCain, Senator Gramm, 
Senator Domenici, and Senator Bingaman are at their wit's end, and 
certainly Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer are at their wit's end 
with promises made and not fulfilled by the Border Patrol to keep the 
illegal drugs out of our country that are preying on our young people.
  This is a priority. It is an emergency. It is a war that we are 
losing, and we are going to try to fix it. But we must have the support 
of the INS to do it. We are going to give them pay raises. We are going 
to create another office in the Border Patrol for recruitment and 
retention to tell us what else we need to do, and we are going to fix 
this problem if we can have a hand-to-hand relationship with the INS 
and the Border Patrol.
  It is inexcusable that they did not come to us earlier to tell us 
they were this far behind. We are going to fix this problem. We are not 
going to sit back and let the children of our country be absorbed in 
drugs that are illegally crossing the border and made available to 
young people who are not yet mature enough to know what to do when they 
are approached.
  Mr. President, we are trying to do our part. I call on the INS and 
the Border Patrol and this administration to do their part, because we 
are not going to take it anymore. We are going to solve this problem. 
We are going to put the resources in it. If the INS will put those 
resources to work and be creative and innovative and dogged in their 
determination, we will make a difference, but we can't do it without 
their commitment.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the distinguished Senator yield?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield to the Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senator for the introduction. I ask 
unanimous consent that I be made a cosponsor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would be pleased to add Mr. Hollings as an original 
cosponsor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I would like to say a word about this particular 
problem.
  Is the Senator yielding the floor?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from South Carolina, because he 
has provided leadership and support in our committee and because he has 
the training agency that is sitting empty right now in his State. They 
do a great job training our agents. He knows what a problem this is. I 
look forward to his remarks. I appreciate his support, and I appreciate 
his leadership in the past on trying to help us recruit. I think this 
is something that is in the interest of all of us to solve so that 
every school in America will be drug free.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator 
from Texas. She is right on target. We have graduated over 2,000 agents 
from the finest school down there for Border Patrol agents. Two who 
trained there have already been killed.
  I have visited from time to time. The matter of pay is the issue. We 
advertise and we solicit in the local area over the entire State--and 
nationally--and it is a pay problem.
  I hope we can confront it.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I join Senator Kyl and the other co-
sponsors in introducing legislation that I hope will significantly 
improve the Border Patrol's ability to recruit and retain the talented 
individuals we need to guard our nation's borders against illegal 
immigration and illicit drugs. This legislation is timely and 
important. I hope we can act on it promptly.
  As my colleagues know, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant 
Responsibility Act of 1996 mandated the addition of 1,000 new Border 
Patrol agents annually through 2001 as a means of providing better 
enforcement against illegal immigration, particularly along the 
southwest border. Unfortunately, this Administration has seen fit to 
request full funding for those authorized agents in only one year since 
we passed that law.
  Moreover, problems in recruiting and retaining Border Patrol agents 
have resulted in a net increase of only several hundred new agents 
annually. Thus, during the current fiscal year, for which we did in 
fact appropriate funds for 1,000 new agents, the recruiting and 
retention problems are such that the Border Patrol will see a net 
increase in its ranks of only several hundred agents. Indeed, Border 
Patrol Chief Gus de la Vina testified before the Senate Immigration 
Subcommittee only yesterday that, despite the Congressional mandate to 
add 1,000 new agents this year, the Border Patrol only anticipates 
hiring between 200 and 400 agents. Arizona, which had anticipated 
receiving about 400 of the 1,000 new agents slated for FY 1999, will 
now receive fewer than 150. We can and must do better than that.
  The Border Patrol's Tucson sector last month recorded a record 60,537 
illegal immigrant detentions, raising this year's total to more than 
200,000. And the Tucson sector does not even cover the entire Arizona 
border with Mexico. The immigration problem in my state is getting 
worse, not better, as the President's decision to request funding for 
no new agents in FY 2000 implies.

[[Page S4442]]

The Border Patrol's inability to hire the required number of new agents 
even as towns like Douglas, Arizona face a rising tide of illegal 
immigrants does not inspire confidence in its ability to properly carry 
out its mission.
  Our legislation would promote all Border Patrol agents who have 
completed at least one year at the GS-9 level, and who are rated as 
fully successful or higher, to the GS-11 rank, placing them on a 
professional level commensurate with their peers in other Federal law 
enforcement agencies. Our bill would also create an Office of Border 
Patrol Recruitment and Retention to develop outreach programs for 
prospective Border Patrol agents, develop programs to provide retention 
incentives, and make recommendations about Border Patrol salaries and 
benefits. It is our hope that this legislation will help reverse the 
outflow of skilled agents from the Border Patrol, as well as make such 
service more appealing to the talented men and women it relies on.
  America's Border Patrol agents perform critical work but have been 
underappreciated for years. It's time we changed that. The premise of 
our legislation is the Border Patrol agents, whose duties involve 
considerable risks and require unique abilities, perform work as 
important as many of our other Federal law enforcement agents and 
should be compensated accordingly. Similarly, the Border Patrol should 
develop personnel policies to attract more of our best and brightest. 
At a time when we are having trouble hiring and retaining new agents, 
and as pressure from illegal immigration intensifies in some areas, 
especially southern Arizona, we cannot afford not to take better care 
of the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol. Our legislation makes 
meaningful progress toward that end.
                                 ______