Small Wars Journal

Corruption increasing on U.S. side of the border

  1. Blog
Mon, 09/13/2010 - 10:28am
As a follow-up to my last column at Foreign Policy that discussed Mexico's narco-insurgency, I'll note Ceci Connolly's story in yesterday's Washington Post. That article discussed the double life of one U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent who just received a 20 year prison sentence for corruption.

According to the article, investigators are now working on over 1,000 corruption cases at CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This rate is up three-fold from four years ago.

The article notes that the agencies are struggling to fill thousands of open positions and in the rush to do so have lowered hiring and background check standards. Meanwhile, one investigator termed the sum of money available for corrupting U.S. border officers as "staggering."

Comments

Duck (not verified)

Mon, 09/13/2010 - 1:09pm

Permalink

Omar:

You got the shotgun, I got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?

omarali50

Mon, 09/13/2010 - 12:59pm

Permalink

As a US citizen, I am worried about the so-called war on drugs and its long term ill-effects on the health of this society. I am fundamentally optimistic and I still hope this corrupt scam can be laid aside and replaced with a more rational policy, but things will probably get worse before they get better.