Growing up in the shadow of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Joseph Howard dreamed of becoming a special agent. He enlisted in the military after high school, later worked a Drug Enforcement Administration contract and was a police officer in Georgia when he applied for a job with Border Patrol.
"When I got to the polygraph stage, it just blew up in my face," Howard said. "The first time I took the polygraph, I thought, like any normal person who would—any a normal American would: Polygraphs are the truth."
Customs and Border Protection has struggled for years to meet its staffing goals, and the Border Patrol union says the polygraph requirement is eliminating scores of otherwise qualified candidates. Several former CBP applicants — three of whom have other law enforcement experience — shared their polygraph experiences with Fox News and said they don't think the test should be a make-or-break factor in employment.
"Do I think the test is reliable? Not at all," said Howard, who told Fox News he failed two polygraphs in his quest to join the Secret Service and CBP, but passed one required by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. "It's just high-tech voodoo."
Lie detector tests are generally inadmissible in court cases, and federal law bans most private companies from using them to screen employees. But taking a polygraph has been mandatory for prospective Customs and Border Protection agents for the past decade.
About two-thirds of CBP applicants who took a polygraph failed, The Associated Press reported in 2017. The FBI and Secret Service's failure rates were about half that, according to the same report.
None of the agencies provided Fox News with more recent statistics when requested last month, but the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council said CBP's failure rate is currently around 50%.
One woman who took the polygraph in 2013, shortly after it became required, said her examiner got "aggressive," accused her of manipulating her breathing to cheat the test and asked if she thought her father — a retired Texas state trooper — would be proud that she was lying.
"That was the worst experience I've ever had," said G.A., who wished to be identified only by her initials due to restrictions from her current job. "It was just humiliating."
Throughout the six-hour examination, G.A. said her examiner seemed "hung up" on the fact that she wasn't dating anyone and asked many pointed questions about whether G.A. had done drugs, possibly as "sexual favors" for men.
"Look here, mija," the examiner snapped at one point, surprising G.A. with her use of the Spanish term of endearment. "What are you thinking?"
"I remember being embarrassed of what I was about to say," G.A. said. "But I told her, ‘I’m just praying. I'm trying to get through this process.'"
G.A. said the examiner responded in a condescending, mocking tone, "Oh, what do you say? ‘Dear God, help me'?"
At the end of the polygraph, the examiner told her the results were inconclusive, which "meant I pretty much failed," G.A. said. She cried on the drive home and abandoned her dreams of going into law enforcement like her father, uncles and brother.
"I could not go through the idea of failing again," she said. "I couldn't imagine trying to get into [the Texas Department of Public Safety], where my dad was such a standout in his department, and then failing."
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K.C. grew up just four miles from the southern border in Del Rio, Texas, and said he "heard horror stories" about the polygraph ahead of his examination. Other border town applicants he knew said examiners seemed adamant that they were helping Mexican cartels.
"It seems to me that they build some sort of preconceived notion or try to stereotype you based on your background," he told Fox News, asking to remain anonymous because he currently works as a police officer in Texas. "You go into the exam, and you're already dead set to fail."
He now said he doesn't understand how the polygraph can completely disqualify Border Patrol applicants.
"It's disheartening, if anything, knowing Border Patrol needs more bodies and there's something that's like unconstitutional in place, keeping people from getting employed," he said.
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Wayne Del Grosso, who works at a jail in upstate New York, told Fox News he has taken four polygraphs in hopes of joining CBP's Office of Field Operations, which manages customs enforcement at hundreds of ports of entry to the United States.
After failing his first polygraph in 2019, he was blocked from reapplying for two years. At that point, he tried again and said a series of inconclusive examinations resulted in him driving to polygraph locations across the state — and even in Connecticut — for three more tests.
"It's a lot of time and money having been put out to even get to these polygraphs," Del Grosso said. "It's just insanity."
The cost of all those polygraphs isn't limited to applicants: CBP’s spending on polygraph examinations has increased sevenfold since 2014, according to federal contract records.
Del Grosso said he doesn't think the polygraph should be completely eliminated, but that it should be used as a starting point for the background investigation into candidates.
"Most people don't disagree with its usage," he said. "They just disagree with how it's being used and that it's a 100% pass or fail."
