U.S. Border Agency Says Hundreds of Employees Have Been Arrested Over 2 Years

More than 500 employees of the United States’ primary border security agency were charged with drug trafficking, accepting bribes and a range of other crimes over a two-year period, according to reports released on Friday. The reports, released by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Human Resource Management and its Office of Professional Responsibility, covered the years 2016 and 2017. The most common arrests were related to misconduct involving drugs or alcohol; the reports concluded that 109 employees faced those kinds of charges in 2016, and 119 in 2017. Domestic or family misconduct was the second most common reason for the arrest of the border agency employees — 51 in 2017, up from 44 the previous year, the data show. Customs and Border Protection has a budget of over $15 billion and is the parent agency of the Border Patrol. It employs more than 60,000 people, making it the largest single law enforcement agency in the United States...MORE