Border Patrol agents take oath of office; Yuma Sector seeks to hire hundreds more

Yuma Sector Border Patrol welcomed eight new agents into the force on Tuesday.

The effort is a part of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order to increase protection along the Southern border.

Moreover, the move comes after Yuma Sector Border Patrol Chief Anthony Porvaznik urged the White House to increase the number of agents protecting Yuma’s border. Although Yuma Sector currently has 826 border patrol agents, Porvaznik said they plan to have over 1,200 agents in total. Agent Fidel Cabrera said additional hires are something Yuma Sector has been anticipating. He said the incentive is in part because agents want to maintain a safe border through an increase in manpower. “We want to bring those numbers up,” Cabrera said. “We want to bring them up to over 1,000. We don’t want to go back to the early 2000’s where we had people pretty much running through the streets and fences.” The increase in manpower is a result of the Executive Order President Trump signed in January 2017, a bill that aims to hire 5,000 border patrol agents. Senator Jeff Flake also said the agency is in dire need of more hires across the country. For that reason, Flake passed the CBP Hire Act in June 2017. The bill aims to boost manpower by the border by implementing “special incentives, pay rates and authorities” to help Customs and Border Protection hire additional agents.