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By Lauren Villagran

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is creating hundreds of new, civilian jobs to handle the processing and welfare checks of migrants at the border — a move advocates have recommended to curb allegations of abusive treatment in border enforcement.

The USAJobs.gov posting shows openings in El Paso and McAllen, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona, for civilians to help "with humanitarian care and intake processing of detainees," including maintaining migrants' "security and well-being" and handling transport to hospitals.

Border Patrol has struggled to care for the more vulnerable population of migrants now arriving at the Southwest border.

Gone are the days of agents pursuing mostly single men who crossed illegally in search of work. More than two-thirds of those apprehended by Border Patrol in fiscal 2019 were families or unaccompanied children, many them fleeing violence in their home countries with hopes of seeking asylum in the U.S.

The trauma of the journey and detention in the U.S. have left many migrants weakened and sick, especially babies and children. At least six children have died in federal custody over the past year. Four died while in Border Patrol custody, according to the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which tracks migrant deaths at the border.

Nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica this week released a video showing 16-year-old Guatemalan Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez writhing in a border holding cell as he died from the flu, suggesting that agents weren't performing the sort of welfare checks that the new position would be tasked with doing.

CBP announced plans in May to create the new jobs, under the title "Border Patrol Processing Coordinator." The jobs were posted to the federal government's hiring website for the first time on Wednesday.

The new hires could alleviate frustrations among Border Patrol who have argued that they are trained as law enforcers, not caregivers, and boost morale in an agency that has struggled to attract new recruits.

"It allows the agents to go out there and do their job, putting them up on the front line where they belong," said El Paso sector Border Patrol spokesman Ramiro Cordero.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, has been pushing for the creation of the non-law enforcement positions, especially given the shift in demographics of those arriving at the border. In leading multiple congressional delegations to visit border stations over the past year, Escobar said, "It didn’t take me very long to understand that it is counter-intuitive and inefficient to have highly trained law enforcement agents — men and women with a gun and a badge — to be handling processing functions and, more importantly, caring for families and children.

"I could sense the deep sense of frustration from agents," she said. "I was worried this was not what they were trained to do."

Escobar said the agency is expected to hire as many as 1,000 non-agents to handle intake and humanitarian care over the next three years. The final number will likely depend on the congressional budgeting process.

The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., supported the creation of the coordinator positions in a recent report, saying "a fundamentally new operational model designed to process mixed flows, largely of families, must be developed and implemented."

"These are changes that are a timely, responsible reaction to what’s happened in the last year," said Doris Meissner, director of the MPI's Immigration Policy Program and a former commissioner of what was the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"Everything we know looking ahead is that this flow isn’t going to be a one-time thing," Meissner said. "It’s going to be an enduring phenomenon, if you look at the conditions in Central America."

Nearly 550,000, or 65%, of the more than 851,000 people apprehended by Border Patrol at the Southwest border in fiscal 2019 were families and children. They often turned themselves into agents.

Vicki Gaubeca, executive director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, questioned putting the coordinator position under CBP and Border Patrol, which "haven’t done a good job with any humanitarian approach."

"They are taking the work the agents don’t want and dumping it on a person who will coordinate (migrants) welfare, but not in a way that is sufficient to meet humanitarian standards," she said.

"We’re advocating for a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach to deal with the refugee issue at our border, which wouldn’t be a crisis if they had handled it correctly to begin with," Gaubeca said.

Escobar said she began conversations about the coordinator jobs with former CBP Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan and continued advocating for the change with current CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan. Internally, Border Patrol leaders including El Paso Interim Sector Chief Gloria Chavez have also advocated for the change.

In its May announcement of the new positions, CBP said that "as a result of the humanitarian and border security crisis, 40% of the Border Patrol agents on the Southwest border are currently conducting processing, transportation, care and hospital watch, feeding, and cleaning duties instead of frontline law enforcement responsibilities."

The jobs are initially available to "displaced" or "surplus" federal employees — those who have recently lost government jobs. But the positions, which pay $37,843 to $49,200 per year, are expected to become open to the public soon.

In addition to the processing duties and welfare checks, the new hires are expected to track and store migrants' belongings, make arrangements for their deportation or release, and handle the paperwork for all of the above.

Border-wide, CBP apprehended 977,509 migrants at and between ports of entry in fiscal 2019, up 53% from 521,090 the year before.