CBP officer

[sandwichman]

Since the topic of BI's was brought up the way they are done is as follows. I am giving general policy so I don't give away anything that CBP might want to keep quite.

snip snip

This next part is conjecture. The adjudicator writes justification for their decision and forwards it the file to their supervisor who takes the final decision.

Holy crap Batman!

Geez. Wow, Barnaj's and the above post are some of the most eye opening ones I've read on here. Thanks guys. The above sure as hell doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the speed of the process and I guess its more of the now familiar, "hurry up and wait" to get my BI done. Granted, I have a few more years before being up a stinky creek without a paddle for the job, but I just wish things we could be given some sort of official timeline to expect for the every stage of this.

I have a cool cat and dog I don't want to get rid of. If I get into FLETC, my parents would watch my cat and my ex missus would watch my energetic pit. The only bad part about this arrangement is that my mom has an 84 year old brother in Europe whom she'd like to see again this year but won't be able to if she's preoccupied cat-sitting.

If DHS is reading this forum, a possible suggestion to make the application process more user friendly would be to give people minimum time frames. I know this is next to impossible on account of each applicant's circumstances being different, but if there was a wish list for process improvements..

Could you give us aspiring Federal employees minimum timelines? Something along the lines of BI will take a minimum of x amount of weeks to complete. VBT will take x weeks to clear, qualifications take x time to verify/process, etc.

Yesterday someone posted that the hell has just begun, but so far this hiring process hasn't been all that bad.

[blk98gt]

If DHS is reading this forum, can I have a job now?

[merlin436]

If you have to ask about steps, chances are you'll never see a step above step one until you've reached your 11(or 12...if an upgrade comes about).

Steps at the 05-07-09 level pretty much only come into play for people with previous government service.

[merlin436]

I'll bet at some level, somewhere CBP/DHS is indeed reading this forum.

Be on your best behavior.

[nate7377]

I'll bet at some level, somewhere CBP/DHS is indeed reading this forum.

Be on your best behavior.

I see you.

[TuffStuffCBP]

I see you.

Dun Dun Dun.

It would make sense if they were reading it.

[nate7377]

Dun Dun Dun.

It would make sense if they were reading it.

LOL, You guys are good sport. Man this is a long thread I haven't been in here in awhile.

[Sakic]

Sakic,

It's not time to worry yet, Scout. I had the same issue with my letter. All mail sent to IA is first routed to a different address so that it can be scanned/inspected for harmful substances and such. It adds about 8 days to the mailings. My IA told me not to stress too much about the 30 day deadline. They use it as a guideline and they also understand the slow down in the mail. You sent it and you have the receipt. So just go back to normal wait mode. A NOPA response may take 3 months to over a year to hear anything back from. Most applicants that have posted their situations here have stated that they never hear anything at all from IA. One day they log onto CASS and they have their green check mark. In short, save your $17 for another overnight package to IA, wait an additional week, then try to get a hold of your adjudicator. Good luck

It's not the wait on my BI to clear that has me worried. I'm just concerned that they never received it. Either it never made it there, or the carrier didn't scan it like he's supposed to.

I just want to confirm that they got it so I can go back to forgetting that I ever began this hellish process.

How'd you contact your adjudicator? The NOPA gives me a name, but no phone or email.

[Draven27]

You can get a bike used for a few bucks down there. There are literally hundreds of abandoned bikes laying around the Taj or people that are graduating are trying to off load theirs for a few bucks.

Buying a car is challenging. GA state law says you must have a valid GA drivers license to register a car there so if your an out of stater you would have to register it in FL.

I dont kno whether the original guy meant bike as in motorcycle but its not that hard to get a car/motorcycle here. I bought a motorcycle in Atlanta the first wknd I got here and I did a Licensing Power of Attorney before I left and had a friend license and register the bike for me and sent me the plates and Im good to go. I, too, looked on Craigslist and found numerous motorcycles I was interested in and they're alot cheaper here than back where Im from. Feel free to email me if you got any other questions.

[DirtStyx]

It's not the wait on my BI to clear that has me worried. I'm just concerned that they never received it. Either it never made it there, or the carrier didn't scan it like he's supposed to.

I just want to confirm that they got it so I can go back to forgetting that I ever began this hellish process.

How'd you contact your adjudicator? The NOPA gives me a name, but no phone or email.

Mine was the same way. I wrote a letter to my adjudicator and asked her for her contact info the day after I received my NOPA. She was very prompt and polite. She gave me her phone number and the address and phone number for the FOIA department since I had asked for it. I sent my response through priority mail. After 12 days, no one had signed for it yet, so I called her. That is when she explained to me about the mail delay and since my 30 day period was about to expire and she could tell I was stressed, she gave me her fax number and told me not to worry about the timeline too much.

In short, they'll get your letter. Try to use this as reassurance and try not to stress too much. My letter took something like 17 days before anyone in D.C. signed for it.

[barnaj]

Hey now! Be nice. BoP isn't an easy job. Trust me.

Haha, sorry! The job is difficult im sure, but it doesnt excuse 310 women with purple hair and 5 inch fingernails walking around fletc in a BOP outfit! Okay had to get the off my chest!

[seeOH]

Haha, sorry! The job is difficult im sure, but it doesnt excuse 310 women with purple hair and 5 inch fingernails walking around fletc in a BOP outfit! Okay had to get the off my chest!

One of the BoP's missions is to train everyone to be a Correctional Officer first... then a nurse, secretary, chaplain, etc. Point being, those women that have 5 inch nails are probably not Correctional Officers (on a day to day basis anyways) and are probably secretaries or nurses, etc. and they're attending training that's mandated. Does it look bad... sure. But you have to look at it from the BoP's perspective. Try paying someone 35k a year to go fight with criminals all day and babysit men and women that have had every privilege and freedom taken away from them. Oh, and you're normally outmanned 130 to 1. You won't necessarily get the best of applicants because it’s such a crazy job... if you can even get any applicants at all. BoP is a tough job for a selected few. It's easy to judge a book by its cover until you've actually read it.

[merlin436]

It's fairly easy to throw jabs at many of the BOP recruits. It's also fairly easy to throw jabs at more than a few CBPO trainees.

I'll tell you one thing though, you couldn't pay me enough money to work in corrections. Another thing...most of the former BOP/State CO's that I've worked with in CBP tend to be among the most 10-08 guys we've got.

[barnaj]

One of the BoP's missions is to train everyone to be a Correctional Officer first... then a nurse, secretary, chaplain, etc. Point being, those women that have 5 inch nails are probably not Correctional Officers (on a day to day basis anyways) and are probably secretaries or nurses, etc. and they're attending training that's mandated. Does it look bad... sure. But you have to look at it from the BoP's perspective. Try paying someone 35k a year to go fight with criminals all day and babysit men and women that have had every privilege and freedom taken away from them. Oh, and you're normally outmanned 130 to 1. You won't necessarily get the best of applicants because it’s such a crazy job... if you can even get any applicants at all. BoP is a tough job for a selected few. It's easy to judge a book by its cover until you've actually read it.

I wasn't dissing the job or the work. Im simply saying if you're gonna send people to a training center like FLETC, they should enforce some sort of grooming standards. We used to say "are those the guards or the actual prisoners?" Yes, it was that bad.

[DCH]

Could it be that I was born in a communist country?

I don't think it matters if you're Canadian.