Corruption at Frontline Border Agency Still a Problem Decade after Probe Exposes Crisis

A decade after a Homeland Security Advisory Council determined that “true levels of corruption within CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are not known,” a myriad of cases, including several in the last few weeks alone, indicates the problem is as serious as it was ten years ago at the nation’s biggest law enforcement agency. With more than 60,000 employees, CBP is the country’s frontline border conglomerate charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. The agency, which includes Air and Marine Operations and the U.S. Border Patrol, was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks to protect the American people and safeguard our borders. In its 20th anniversary celebration, CBP proclaimed that it continues to grow stronger, more dynamic and capable of taking on our nation’s most important challenges.

But corruption among its agents is persistent, inevitably compromising its critical mission of protecting the nation from potential terrorist threats. The problem is so serious that the agency conducted a widespread, multi-year study of corruption in CBP that includes “detailed information on its nature and prevalence in the workforce.” The probe found that only one quarter of one percent of the CBP workforce is corrupt—defined as engagement in criminal activity that involves the misuse of an agent’s official position for personal gain—but the impact has had “significant and damaging implications for CBP’s reputation, ability to execute its mission, and on employee morale,” according to investigators. Corrupt agents use knowledge, access, or authority granted by virtue of their official position to personally engage in criminal activity or to facilitate the criminal activity of others. In exchange, they receive material and non-material benefits or advantages such as money, goods, services, power, influence, or relationships.

In many of the cases officers either infiltrate CBP with the express intent of engaging in criminal activity or are recruited by drug cartels, officially known as Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs), to do so. “They facilitate drug and human smuggling exclusively at the Southwest Border by failing to perform a function of their inspection or enforcement responsibilities,” the extensive probe found. Investigators documented that 173 employees were convicted or entered guilty pleas for corruption related activities. That includes drug smuggling, money laundering, illegal alien smuggling, fraud, theft, and misuse of government technology. The overwhelming majority of cases involved illegal activity in direct opposition to the CBP mission with national security implications and crimes occurred at dozens of duty posts in 19 states with Texas leading the pack, followed by Arizona. More than half of the crimes involved the illegal smuggling of drugs, migrants, and other contraband into the United State.

In recent cases that had not yet occurred when the study was published, a Border Patrol agent in El Paso, Texas was sentenced to 18 months in prison for soliciting bribes from illegal immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico in exchange for paperwork that would permit them to remain in the U.S. The disgraced federal agent, Fernando Castillo, made false entries in the migrants’ immigration file and printed the fraudulent documents. In another recent case a Border Patrol agent was sentenced to over seven years in prison after getting convicted of taking bribes to smuggle narcotics and migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border while on duty. The corrupt agent, Hector Hernandez, pleaded guilty to receiving bribes and attempted distribution of methamphetamine and admitted to using his official position to open restricted border fences to allow people to illegally enter the U.S. in exchange for cash payments. A CBP officer in San Diego, California was recently sentenced to 23 years in prison for accepting bribes to allow unauthorized migrants and vehicles containing methamphetamine and other illicit drugs to pass through the border into the U.S.

Less than halfway into 2025, at least six CBP agents have been criminally charged, four of them in the last few weeks. In February the FBI El Paso West Texas Border Corruption Task Force arrested a veteran CBP officer named Manuel Perez for human and cocaine smuggling over many years on the El Paso border. In March a CBP officer was sentenced to over four years in prison for accepting bribes to smuggle illegal immigrants into the U.S. In late April a jury convicted a Border Patrol agent of conspiring with Mexican nationals to allow “load” vehicles to pass through border crossings without inspection. Earlier this month three CBP officers in San Diego were indicted for allowing illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. through their inspection lanes at the San Ysidro Point of Entry.