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 News from Around the Americas | May 2007 
US Border Agents Recruited to Teach Iraqis Border Security
 Associated Press
| | Border Patrol Agent recruits practice small arms firing as Senior Agents (in red) look on at the Border Patrol Academy in Artesia, N.M. (AP/Matt York) |
Phoenix, AZ - A military contracting company is recruiting current and former agents with the U.S. Border Patrol to teach Iraqis how to secure their country's border.
The U.S. State Department has asked Virginia-based DynCorp International to find 120 people with Customs and Border Enforcement experience to go to Iraq for the training.
The company has contracted with the State Department since 1994 and already has 700 police trainers for local security in Iraq. The department made the request for border security trainers in late March.
DynCorp is offering recruits $134,100 for a one-year stay, plus a $25,000 signing bonus. The first $90,000 in income is tax free, and housing and food are free, company spokesman Gregory Lagana said.
Border Patrol agents with at least two years' experience make roughly $55,000.
Lagana was unsure how many people in Tucson joined up when the company recruited there this past week. But, he said 23 of the 30 recruits who have deployed for Iraq were former Border Patrol agents.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano worries DynCorp's effort is distracting from securing the U.S.-Mexico border. She and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wrote President Bush this week to say the deal "makes no sense."
"We should be focused on supporting our nation's security efforts along the Mexican and Canadian border instead of hampering (Customs and Border Patrol) by sending our best agents to a war zone in Iraq," the governors wrote.
Agent Shannon Stevens, a Border Patrol spokeswoman, said the number of personnel DynCorp is looking for is "a very small number compared to the agents we have."
Arizona's Tucson sector employs 2,600 agents, and there are more than 13,350 nationwide.
But Napolitano spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer said the issue isn't the numbers. "(DynCorp) basically has a contract to skim off Border Patrol agents," she said.
On the Net: U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement: http://www.cbp.gov - DynCorp International: http://www.dyn-intl.com/ |
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