Is It Time to Create a Homeland Security Reserve Corps?

I spent the weekend reading H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in the version that passed out of the House for the second time and was signed into law by the president. It left me pondering a number of issues, but particularly about the many chokepoints that are going to crop up on the way to hiring and training so many new personnel at once.

A great deal of funding — billions and billions of dollars — is being showered upon the Department of Homeland Security and its various components, including the U.S. Coast Guard for, among other things, drug and migrant interdiction duties along the nation’s maritime borders — but most especially Customs and Border Protection (which includes the Border Patrol) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Some of the funds have been authorized to cover past expenses that were undoubtedly incurred as a result of the Biden administration’s open-borders mess, and virtually all of the rest is multi-year money that can be spent up until, in most cases, September 30, 2029.

The money is intended to cover a host of things, not least of which are increases in agents, officers, and support personnel; the re-hiring of retired annuitants whose dormant skills are sorely needed as quickly as possible; and facilitating and enhancing state and local officer participation in immigration law enforcement activities through the 287(g) program (named after the section of law establishing the program), which trains these officers to act as Designated Immigration Officers.

The problem as I see it is that federal personnel policies, practices, and mandatory training and probationary periods just are not capable of keeping pace with the urgent need to have boots on the ground in order to turn around the immigration lawlessness set loose upon the country during the Biden-Mayorkas years.

Even bringing on rehired annuitants takes time: There are updated background checks to run, medical examinations to perform, firearms qualifications to conduct, and refresher courses to be taken. Likewise with state and local officers inducted into the 287(g) program: They too must undergo training, satisfactorily complete background investigations, score passing grades in their training courses, etc. — and all of this must be done through the same facilities and units that are already getting swamped with new recruits.

The difficulty of bringing on large cadres of law enforcement personnel in short periods of time can be likened to a python eating a pig: You know it will eventually swallow and digest the pig, but it’s going to be a long, ugly, sluggish process before it’s done.

All of this could be avoided, though, if legislation were introduced and enacted that created a Homeland Security Reserve Corps consisting of former and retired agents and officers, and even state and local sworn officers who receive the necessary training to engage in immigration law enforcement work.

Just as in the military, these reserves could be called up periodically for refresher training and exercises, and even to participate in actual field operational duties. And in times of need, they would be available in very short notice to join, or at least backfill, agents and officers who are summoned elsewhere for temporary duty, such as during surge operations in major cities.

Surely it would cost no more, and probably significantly less, to initiate and maintain such a corps on a regular basis than will be spent trying to fill out the ranks with newly minted but untested officers, all of whom carry with them the retirement, health, and other benefits attendant on federal service.

It’s an idea worth considering.