WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-New Program Lets Border Patrol Agents Serve Close to Home

New Program Lets Border Patrol Agents Serve Close to Home

Swanton, Vermont -- October 29, 2009

     Thursday was the first day on the job for the northern border's newest agents. They just arrived at headquarters in Swanton from training on the Mexican border in Texas.
     "It was amazing," said Josh Cozzens, an agent originally from Huntington. "It was 100 degrees when we left and we come up here and it's 40 degrees."
     Cozzens is part of a new recruiting effort aimed at filling vacancies on the northern border spots the U.S. Border Patrol says had been difficult to fill. Historically all recruits had been assigned to the southwest border for at least three to five years.
     "It's a lot to give up if you're from this area, if you have roots in this area, to pick up and move to the southwest and not really know when you're going to come back," said Ross DeLacy, a supervisory border patrol agent. "But with this northern border intern program, this is a finite amount of time you spend down there and then you know you're coming back to the Swanton sector when you're permanently assigned."
     Recruits spent four months at the border patrol academy in New Mexico, then ten months training in Texas.
     "We think that's very important they have that exposure," DeLacy said. "Because as we tell people when they come up here, you're going to see the same things, you're just not going to see it with the frequency you're used to seeing it on the southwest border."
     The Swanton sector covers 295 miles of the northern U.S. border and has an authorized staff of 300. Border Patrol says this new program should help it reach that staffing number, which is critical to its mission.
     "We're responsible for the area between the ports of entry," DeLacy said. "So anything and everything going on in that area, whether somebody's trying to sneak across; whether it's a group of people trying to sneak across; whether it's narcotics coming across; and of course, more recently, since 9/11 our primary concern is terrorism."
     Josh Cozzens says it was the perfect opportunity to come home to Vermont. And after serving with the Army in Iraq, he wanted to continue serving his country.
     "This was another opportunity for me to continue on the scope national security," he said, "and just be on the domestic side of it."

Kate Duffy -- WCAX News