FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) – The beer was flowing and music was blaring in the middle of the Arizona desert when Ric Kindle approached a group of Border Patrol agents and customs officers out to recruit new hires.
This was no average job fair. This was Country Thunder, one of the nation’s largest country music festivals, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection set up a booth in front of a pop-up casino and near the merchandise tent as part of an effort to recruit thousands of new agents and officers.
Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol and the office that oversees customs officers, has been hiring for several years and now may need to fill an additional 5,000 positions within the Border Patrol that President Donald Trump ordered under his plan to bolster border security. Both the Border Patrol and customs officers were at the festival.
Kindle, 24, said he’d be applying to the Border Patrol as soon as he got home at the end of the four-day festival. He said he’s wanted to get into law enforcement ever since a local police officer took him on a ride-along when he was a teenager who skipped school and lacked motivation.
“I don’t care what form of force it is, I just kind of want to make a difference,” said Kindle, a Phoenix-area resident who works as a fast-food cook. He was volunteering for a nonprofit that raises money for families of first responders who are hurt or killed on the job.