House votes to allow lie detector exemptions for Border Patrol hiring

The House passed bipartisan legislation on Wednesday to waive lie detector test requirements for prospective Customs and Border Protection workers, part of an effort to help speed agency hiring. The bill, approved on a 282-137 vote, would allow the CBP commissioner to make polygraph exemptions for certain candidates who are law enforcement officers or veterans. To qualify for a waiver, the candidates would have to be law enforcement officers who have passed a polygraph test in the last decade and aren’t under investigation or guilty of misconduct. Veterans would need to have served at least three years in the military, held a high-level security clearance in the last five years and passed a background check. Proponents of the legislation cited shortages of more than 1,400 CBP officers and 1,700 Border Patrol agents, in part because nearly two-thirds of applicants fail the polygraph tests...more