Border Patrol Facts

"The Border Patrol is one of the few large law enforcement agencies that does not require a college degree or even a high school diploma and can offer pay of $70,000 after just a few years, factoring in overtime." That's from a New York Times article about the Border Patrol's efforts to increase recruiting in African-American communities since the agency is currently hard-up for recruits and only one percent black. The larger issue here is that when you decide that it would be good politics to double the size of an agency during a very brief span of time, you're then left with the difficult task of actually recruiting the manpower.

The Finnish Border Guard has a comparable mission of securing a long land border with a much poorer country but I think it's a relatively elite force. The United States is trying to maintain global military commitments, needs good people to police our large cities (indeed, we need more and better of them), run FBI counter-terrorism and organized crime operations, etc. Unless we're prepared to seriously bump the border patrol in the list of public sector priorities, which sounds like a bad idea to me, it seems to me that we'd be better off with a relatively small but high-quality force than with a large one riddled with problems like the recruit who "was recently ejected from the training academy after being arrested in a gun smuggling case."

Photo by Flickr user StormyRed 28 used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Especially if that small force is riding around in those awesome heli-trucks.

Posted by UN Plaza | June 23, 2008 3:43 PM

Hell, you can run an ammo smuggling operation out of the Albanian embassy and tell Congress to fuck off if they don't like it. What's the big deal about recuiting similar characters for our border patrol?

Posted by steve duncan | June 23, 2008 3:43 PM

Who wouldn't want to join a force that flies the 4WheelDrive GMC JimmyCopter?

Posted by cogswell | June 23, 2008 3:45 PM

Yeah, but how much overtime? Sure $70K as soon as you put in that 100 hour week for 52 weeks...

Posted by Rob | June 23, 2008 3:46 PM

Who wouldn't want to join a force that flies the 4WheelDrive GMC JimmyCopter?

Posted by cogswell | June 23, 2008 3:47 PM

Yeah, but how much overtime? Sure $70K as soon as you put in that 100 hour week for 52 weeks...

Posted by Rob | June 23, 2008 3:50 PM

Yeah, but how much overtime? Sure $70K as soon as you put in that 100 hour week for 52 weeks...

Posted by Rob | June 23, 2008 3:59 PM

The Finnish Border Guard has a comparable mission of securing a long land border with a much poorer country

Huh? Russia? Sweden Really?

Posted by Kolohe | June 23, 2008 3:59 PM

Kolohe - Matt's saying that Russia is much poorer than Finland, not that Russia is much poorer than Mexico.

Posted by N | June 23, 2008 4:08 PM

You should check out "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada", a fine film.

Posted by tinisoli | June 23, 2008 4:09 PM

I am not a big fan of illegal immigration but don't see a bigger border patrol as the solution. We need to get a guest worker visa program in place and then crush employers that hire illegals. Problem solved.

Posted by danceswithgoats | June 23, 2008 4:13 PM

N-
Yeah, but it's an order of mangitude difference.

wiki GDP per capita

Finland $29K Russia $14K

USA $46K Mexico $12K.

Plus the Russian big city near Finland (St Petersbuurg) is the richest part of Russia outside of Moscow. The Mexican big cities near the US are among the poorest in that country.

Plus, maybe because I now hate the cold living in Hawaii so long, but I think subartic mountains and tundra is more difficult terain than desert.

Posted by Kolohe | June 23, 2008 4:28 PM

danceswithgoats: we already have such programs, albeit of a limited variety. And, generally speaking, giving crooked employers (and the rest) what they want will only make them want more and give them more power from which to do it.

As for the BP, there is (of course) much that MattY doesn't know. For instance, there's a clear break between the thoughts of those on the front lines and their managers, with the latter doing what Bush wants. And, what he wants is to provide a de facto CheapLabor program with the BP largely for show. And, there's (of course for us, not so of course for MattY) the RamosAndCompean case. And, there are the other cases, with at least one involving the Mexicangovernment hiring a U.S.-based lawyer to defend their citizens; that lawyer has a series of links to that government and a bewildering array of others, from AmericanApparel to the ACLU. And, there's the case of GeorgePBush and what he said. And, all the rest.

Scan my archives to learn much, much more about this topic than MattY will ever understand.

Posted by TLB | June 23, 2008 4:28 PM

I don't know why so many progressives are "soft" on illegal immigration and guest workers. If you want to raise wages in this country then a labor shortage ought to look very appealing. Economists estimate that the absence of illegal immigrants would raise the wages of unskilled workers by "only" a few percentage points. But considering that unskilled workers have seen their wages _decline_ 10% since the 70s that would be a huge improvement!

Posted by DCreader | June 23, 2008 4:29 PM

DCreader: I think there are five main reasons:

1. Ethnic advocates want race-based power and invent farcical arguments and use other means to push their agenda.
2. The MSM joins in because they see immigrants as a market, those linked to their owners are helping their friends make money and helping the Dems, and reporters are generally leftwing. They join in by publishing an endless number of biased reports and by failing to point out when pols lie about this topic.
3. The Dem Party doesn't care where its votes come from and they have links to the preceding groups.
4. Most non-elite liberals have been trained to equate ImmigrationEnforcement with racism by the preceding groups.
5. The far-left interest in reducing the political power of white people, i.e., building a proletariat. MarkPotok of the SPLC has hinted at that, and it wouldn't take much effort to find others being more explicit.

Posted by Eleven unanswered requests for MattY | June 23, 2008 4:41 PM

And, all the rest.

Such as TheBrownMenace taking all of our spaces.

Posted by BLT | June 23, 2008 4:47 PM

Well, I'll take a stab at being the contrarian troll on this thread. I don't think a college education is required for most jobs, and border patroller is probably no exception. Matthew is displaying an elitist streak when he implies that hiring the college-educated would create a “higher quality” force (i.e. less likely to have criminal tendencies). My observation is that the college-educated make "higher quality" criminals. Education and ethical behavior are not directly correlated.

Posted by beowulf888 | June 23, 2008 4:51 PM

"the agency is currently hard-up for recruits and only one percent black."
Please, they need to come to chicago. There are plenty of young afroamericans who would do the job. They would escape the randon drive-bys that have killed over 20 children this year.

Posted by jerri | June 23, 2008 4:56 PM

I think Finland pays more money for their border guard because they fought a shooting war against Russia in the last century, and Finnish territory was occupied by the Soviets.

We at least don't have to worry about espionage or hostile military action from Mexico.

Posted by Jon H | June 23, 2008 5:10 PM

Matt's concern with the quality of Border Patrol personnel is odd as he thinks its real job ought to be to look the other way.

Posted by kafka | June 23, 2008 5:23 PM

I enjoyed Monocle's take on the Finnish border patrol.

Posted by George Kelly | June 23, 2008 5:28 PM

Like so many of Matt's better ideas, he likely got the reference to the success of Finland in protecting its long border with much poorer Russia from me:

http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/070319_diversity.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 23, 2008 6:13 PM

I think Finland pays more money for their border guard because they fought a shooting war against Russia in the last century, and Finnish territory was occupied by the Soviets.

We at least don't have to worry about espionage or hostile military action from Mexico.

Arthur Zimmerman and Pancho Villia would like a word.

Posted by Orly | June 23, 2008 6:16 PM

I don't know whether Jon H is being sarcastic or not, but:

1. It's not difficult for me to prove that we're being subjected to a "SoftInvasion" by Mexico. If you say we can't do MassDeportations even if we had to for fear of the violence that would result, then you're admitting that we've been invaded and settled. You can say we could do MassDeportations without resulting violence, but then you'd just be the worst kind of hack. And, note - of course - that saying we shouldn't do MassDeportations isn't a valid counterargument.

2. Mexico's formerForeignMinister threatened the U.S. a while back, promising to begin "propagating militant activities" inside the U.S. He's quite fluent in English and even if he was just using a wacky way of speaking I'm sure he got the message across to the appropriate people. Since JulianSanchez was in one of his classes, and since JS and MattY are part of the same cocoon, maybe MattY could ask JS to ask the formerForeignMinister about that quote.

3. There have been dozens of recent cases where Mexican military units and/or those disguised as same have crossed over into the U.S.

Posted by Eleven unanswered requests for MattY | June 23, 2008 6:22 PM

Kelly, nobody cares about your requests. Now return to your daily routine of jerking off to hentai, crying, hyperventilating when you think you see brown people outside your mom's basement window and repeat.

Posted by Reality Man | June 23, 2008 6:25 PM

MY: "Unless we're prepared to seriously bump the border patrol in the list of public sector priorities, which sounds like a bad idea to me"

No, upping the border patrol in the list of public sector priorities actually is a good idea. As of 2000, 4th generation Mexican Americans still haven't assimilated to average american levels of education and income.

Here is the study, from Vilma Ortiz and Edward Telles of UCLA:

"Mexican American integration slow, education stalled, study finds"
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-study-of-four-generations-46372.aspx

excerpt: "The educational levels of second-generation Mexican Americans improved dramatically. But the third and fourth generations failed to surpass, and to some extent fell behind, the educational level of the second generation. Moreover, the educational levels of all Mexican Americans still lag behind the national average."

excerpt: "Economic status improved from the first to second generation but stalled in the third and fourth generation. Earnings, occupational status and homeownership were still alarmingly low for later generations. Low levels of schooling among Mexican Americans were the main reason for lower income, occupational status and other indicators of socioeconomic status."

Ortiz and Telles specifically state that Mex-Am assimilation is worse than 4th generation European immigrants.

Also see Steve Sailer's article on the study here (he actually read the book for the study instead of just the UCLA press release which I cited above):
http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/080601_barone.htm

Posted by scottynx | June 23, 2008 8:01 PM

Matt Yglesias, trying with all his might/
to prove Kevin MacDonald right.

Posted by Glaivester | June 23, 2008 8:44 PM

then you're admitting that we've been invaded and settled.

And that's completely different to the people who didn't like Great-Granpappy Kelly and the other sons of the sod.

Posted by BLT | June 23, 2008 10:05 PM

A college education, even a HS grad waiver is not necessary to create an elite force in security or even one of absolute top ability in industry.

For security with competence and high professionalism, look at the Marines.
For industry, look at the ironworkers unions, commercial fishermen, high tech farmers.

Few degrees, high ability.

Contrast that with the lack of professionalism and satisfactory performance in 100% college degreed fields like teaching.

Matt Y just thinking his Harvard degree makes him elite...ergo all other people will be transformed into better people and workers by virtue of college.

Hint to Matt - I suspect that the Finns have the same numbers of "elite prep school boys" as the comparable US Coast Guard and Border Patrol do.

Posted by chris ford | June 24, 2008 1:31 AM

"The Border Patrol is one of the few large law enforcement agencies that does not require a college degree or even a high school diploma and can offer pay of $70,000 after just a few years, factoring in overtime."

That explains a lot.

In other words, the Border Patrol is on a par with the Bureau of Prisons for being the haven of un-educated morons who are either wannabe cops who didn't have the educational requirements or downsized military (read: morons even dumber than the average military mind.)

Ford: "For security with competence and high professionalism, look at the Marines."

The Marines are robot jarheads too stupid to be let near a firearm. Their brains could be replaced by a four-function calculator as long as it could be programmed to yell, "Kill! Kill!" The only thing they're good for is killing civilians at random. These morons machine gunned entire Iraqi buses full of people fleeing the fighting in March 2003, just because they THOUGHT there MIGHT be some of Saddam's Fedayeen hiding among them.

As for the moron who thinks that Mexico is "invading" the US, go eat some ice cream and calm down.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 24, 2008 4:34 AM

After some thought, I agree that Finns have easier time in patrolling their border.

One thing is that sub-arctic/arctic landscape is hard to pass through, except in winter, with all its bogs, lakes and rocks. In winter, cross-country skis, something very familiar to the population on both sides of the border, can move you fast and far, but they are also easy to track. You have traction --> you leave tracks.

Second thing is that in Mexico you can drive right to the border. Not so in Arctic.

Third thing, Russians are still fairly diligent in controlling the border from their side. Just an impression, but I crossed a number of border in summer of 2005, and only Russian border control on the Finnish border noticed that my passports has no signature, which lead to at least 10 minutes of deliberations what to do with me --- the verdict was that I should sign the passport

Actually, my impression was that it is rather easy for Russians to just hop on the bus from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, and that getting a visa is not a huge problem. In many European countries you can see hordes of Russian tourists. Russia is actually attracting millions of migrant workers from other countries, likwe Ukraine, Moldova and Central Asia.

Posted by piotr | June 24, 2008 6:23 AM

I don't understand why we're expanding the border patrol or even why we actually have a border patrol. Most countries defend their borders by an organization called "the army". Even sainted Finland has a paramilitary border patrol (it has draftees serving in the ranks-- though not on the front lines apparently) that can be mobilized as part of the Finnish military. Of course our government has so corrupted the words "Defense Department" that we had to create a new cabinet department (DHS) to handle, well, defense.

The simplest way to eliminate the need to expand the border patrol is to build a border fence, a classic force multiplier. There was a reason that World War I armies put coils of barbed wire in front of the trenches. By slowing down anyone crossing open ground, an obstacle allows fewer defenders to stop them (by enfilade machine gun fire back in the day, by border patrol arrest in these more enlightened times).

But building a fence is considered beyond the pale for some reason. Maybe I'm too soft, but it seems more humane to stop people at the border than to wait for them to die in the Arizona desert or be arrested by an ICE raid on their workplace.

And Hack, I know you're no fan of BOP screws, but bear in mind Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment. The Stanford students playing guards, no doubt a "high-quality force" with stellar SAT scores, were so inhumane to the students playing inmates that Zimbardo had to cancel the experiment early. Its like the Japanese say, a man is whatever room he is in.

Posted by beowulf | June 24, 2008 6:26 AM

Despite the big difference in standard of living at Russia-Finland border areas, Finland doesn't attract Russian fortune hunters for several reasons: first, very few Russians speak Finnish moon-language; secondly, there's very little demand in Finland for illegal, very-low-pay workforce, so making an earning would be difficult; and thirdly, it's quite expensive to live in Finland, and very difficult to get a place to stay if you don't have all your papers in order.

There's no underground infrastructure in Finland for exploiting illegal aliens, so they would probably have to sleep in paper recycling bins and beg for living. That, in turn, would attract quite a lot of attention.

Finnish border guards get two year special military training and are in top physical shape, so thats the 'elite' part. Due to low number of border crossers, they get to use their elite skillz only a little: for example, in 2007 there were 27 illegal border crossings from Russia to Finland, and I bet a lot of them were hunters or berry pickers, crossing the line in hot pursuit of deers or blueberries. The fact that single border crossers often make it to national news also tells something about the rarity of cases...

I have no idea how our border guards would perform if there was similar flood of immigrants than in US-Mexico border. Not very well, I suppose.

(Kolohe: instead of mountainous tundra, it's mostly flat, temperate conifer forest, and around 70F at the moment... That's warm, in case Hawaii heat has distorted your reference values. :)

Posted by Teemu | June 24, 2008 6:38 AM

Plus the Russian big city near Finland (St Petersbuurg) is the richest part of Russia outside of Moscow. The Mexican big cities near the US are among the poorest in that country.

Really? You think Baja is poorer than Chiapas?

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 24, 2008 3:04 PM

And, there are the other cases, with at least one involving the Mexicangovernment hiring a U.S.-based lawyer to defend their citizens; that lawyer has a series of links to that government and a bewildering array of others, from AmericanApparel to the ACLU.

I love the conspiracy mongering here.

For those of you who don't know, American Apparel is a trendy clothing company that makes all of its clothing in Los Angeles, pays fair wages and benefits to a workforce of mostly LEGAL Salvadorean immigrants, and is generally a model of corporate social responsibility (except for its founder and President, who is apparently a sexual harasser of the first order).

So in the real world, American Apparel is doing exactly what we would want firms to do-- make stuff in America with legal workers and pay a fair wage. But apparently to racist right-wingers, they are part of the Aztlan conspiracy or something. Amazing.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 24, 2008 3:11 PM

Matt Y just thinking his Harvard degree makes him elite

It does. One of the most amazing rhetorical triumphs of conservativism is this business that the educated elites somehow lack the "wisdom" of common folks and their opinions should be disregarded. It happens to be extremely difficult to do the coursework at a school like Harvard. Most conservatives who say these sorts of things would have difficulty passing the classes. And while having a Harvard degree doesn't always make one right, it at least means that the person has been exposed to the arguments and contentions of some of the greatest thinkers in history.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 24, 2008 3:16 PM

Beowulf: Yeah, but prison guards WANT to be prison guards. They weren't forced into that job. The same applies to anybody who puts on a uniform that allows him to push other people around.

This is WHY prison guards usually come from either failed cops or downsized military.

Of course, as a Transhumanist, I agree with you. Most humans can be turned into torturers in five minutes. They're chimpanzees with a massive genetic need to obey authority.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 24, 2008 4:50 PM