The U.S. Border Patrol is asking agents and trainees to disclose if they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, and those who have not may face significant restrictions, according to internal documents shared with the Washington Examiner.
In August unvaccinated trainees were abruptly kicked out of the academy, where enlistees train to become agents, while active agents face uncertainty about their ability to work. At the same time, federal law enforcement at the border is facing one of the greatest illegal immigration crises in the past century and struggling from being short-staffed.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC), which oversee the department’s law enforcement training facilities, imposed a rule in August barring unvaccinated Border Patrol trainees from graduating from the academy in Artesia, New Mexico. The change went into effect days before the Food and Drug Administration approved the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. FLETC also imposed the vaccine mandate on other DHS law enforcement training facilities, though the Artesia facility is the only one where Border Patrol trains.
“Those unvaccinated and those partially vaccinated are being removed from training until they agree to be fully vaccinated,” Jeffrey Hammes, president of the National Border Patrol Council’s Big Bend, Texas, region, wrote in a memo to members. “This is being done despite the fact that there are no active cases of COVID-19 at the Border Patrol Academy. Many of those unvaccinated trainees at the Academy, after being told that they would be removed from training if they refused to get the vaccine, still refused.”
TEXAS SENATE PASSES $1.8 BILLION BORDER SECURITY BILL WITH FUNDS FOR 700 MILES OF BARRIERS
A memo obtained by the Washington Examiner from a top official at the Border Patrol Academy, Donna Twyford, states that the ban on unvaccinated trainees will be in place for at least 120 days, or four months. It may continue beyond that depending on the prevalence of the delta variant and infection rates. Trainees who refuse the vaccine are banned from the training campus until the restriction is lifted.
Some trainees who are unvaccinated but willing to get the shots were sent to El Paso, Texas. They will begin returning to the academy on Aug. 19, according to Twyford’s memo.
Those unvaccinated are being sent to the busiest place on the border to work indoors processing migrants who have been taken into custody after illegally crossing the border from Mexico. Inside the facilities and tents in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, the trainees work in cramped facilities where hundreds to several thousands of people are held at a time.
“Yesterday morning [trainees] received a call and all of the trainees that chose to remain unvaccinated are to report to RGV to process illegals Wednesday the 18th,” a Border Patrol agent who asked to remain anonymous wrote in a message. “Untrained trainees are being punished for doing something within their choice by being sent to the epicenter.”
Hammes said the matter should be a “personal choice” and “not a blanket mandate from federal bureaucrats.” Other agencies have gone further. The Defense Department, for instance, recently imposed a mandate that all employees get vaccinated.
The shortage of trainees graduating from the academy will also hurt staffing levels on the border. Border Patrol staffing is at approximately 19,500, NBPC National President Brandon Judd wrote in an email. Congress had mandated that staff be at least 21,370 strong, but hiring and retention issues have kept it 10% lower than it ought to be.
“This is another example of the administration not caring about border security. We’re understaffed as it is with a large percentage of our agents in processing rather than patrolling the border, protecting our country and our citizens,” Judd wrote. “Refusing to allow trainees to graduate from the academy puts us even further behind by not providing the resources necessary to secure our borders.”
In addition, all Border Patrol agents were recently instructed to register with the Department of Homeland Security’s Vaccination Status System, which asks Border Patrol agents to disclose vaccination status within 10 days. Agents can select fully vaccinated, not fully vaccinated, or unvaccinated or decline to respond altogether.
Though agents are not required to respond, the DHS will consider agents who do not respond unvaccinated, according to the union. At a minimum, unvaccinated agents are required to wear face masks, socially distance from others, be limited in travel, quarantine if exposed to the virus, and get tested weekly. Their vaccinated counterparts face more relaxed safety measures.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“As far as testing goes, the agency does not have any testing procedures in place, nor is there a timeframe for when they plan to have it in place, but what we do know from the government-wide program, is that employees who are required to get tested will do so in an on-duty status, and at the government’s expense,” the union wrote in a memo to agents.
DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to requests for comment.
