Despite the significant challenges caused by the circulation of people and goods across the borders, the interest in border-related corruption is majorly attributed to the issue in customs corruption. While the Sheriff claims that corruption is mainly as a result of money, other issues are also linked to the increased customs corruption (KTRHnews, 2011). Therefore the focus of the border administration should not only be limited to money forms of corruption but should also investigate other possible links.
The Trump administration, for example, can be said to have contributed to the increased border corruption among the security officials. The administration wants to hire more 5000 new US border patrol agents to reinforce the already existing 20,000 agents. There are also other available job vacancies which are over one thousand that should be filled (KTRHnews, 2011). The congress will be compelled to lower their standards of hiring so that they can acquire the expected number of border officials. Border officials of lower standards are likely to be incompetent and unethical in their operations, and the rate of corruption is expected to escalate within a short time. The resources in terms of salaries that are allocated to the newly hired customs officials will be lower than the usual, and this will increase the urge of an officer to accept bribes from the drug traffickers along the border.
The border officials also face a lot of pressure from organized crime networks of the established cartels. The cartels are firmly grounded and have a lot of money to entice most customs officials who lack integrity due to certain external factors (KTRHnews, 2011). Several murder cases of officers at the border are linked to the cartels that pressurize officers to allow entry of illegal items across the borders. Therefore, corruption at the borders among patrol officers is not connected to only money buts also to other factors like pressure, low hiring standards, and inadequate salaries.
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