DHS Scales Back Troubled Contract Designed to Bring on More Border Agents

The Trump administration is scaling back a $300 million contract it signed a year ago to help fulfill the president’s mandate to hire thousands of Border Patrol agents, customs officers and support staff, saying it now has sufficient resources to make those hires internally. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the realignment after Government Executive reported last month that Accenture, the vendor on the contract, had only made 15 of its goal of 7,500 hires and as the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general released a “management alert” calling on on CBP to “address serious performance issues” on the agreement.