A moderator of the U.S. government-controlled Reddit community r/borderpatrolapplicant writes that as of January 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will no longer ask applicants about drug use during pre-employment polygraph screening.
Moderator Worried_Rooster1612, whom AntiPolygraph.org has reason to believe is a federal polygraph operator, wrote, among other things, on 2 January 2025:
The new change, as of January 2025, is that CBP will no longer ask applicants about drug use during the poly. Regardless, the entire background investigation is a whole person approach and you should still not leave out drug use on the eQIP. Disclose all drug use within the last 7 years on your eQIP that way you’re not worried about something that doesn’t even matter during your poly.
Previously, applicants were questioned about illegal drug use during the pre-test phase of the polygraph examination. While no question specifically about illegal drug use was asked during the “in-test” phase, when the subject is hooked up to the polygraph instrument and asked a series of questions, the topic of illegal drug use fell under the catch-all question, “Have you been involved in any serious criminal activity?”
To our knowledge, CBP has not publicly announced why its polygraphers are no longer asking questions about illegal drug use.
Update (26 January 2025): Reddit user Worried_Rooster1612, a federal polygraph operator who is cited in this post and who was a moderator of the government-controlled subreddit r/borderpatrolapplicant, has deleted his account.
I think the Fed is streamlining the hiring process since there is a huge need for Border Protection agents and related positions. It is hard to staff these federal agencies and therefore the Fed has to make more accommodations to staff all the protection agencies. In addition, the back end of the Baby Boom and the front to middle end of Generation X are retiring and those slots also have to be staffed. A good federal candidate is also employable in the private sector, and the private sector is not allowed to play the pseudo-science poly and VSA games. I hate to think of all the potential we are losing concerning honest and skilled individuals who “fail” a poly of VSA.
Of course, all government branches need to get rid of polys and VSAs, but both communities are politically powerful and put their careerism ahead of what is best for the country.
Any other sources confirming this other than some guy on reddit who claimed to be a tester and deleted his account? I don’t believe this information to be accurate.
At this time, no. We have no other source confirming that CBP has dropped questioning about illegal drug use from their pre-employment polygraph examinations. However, our source for this reporting is not just “some guy on Reddit.” The source was a moderator of the subreddit r/borderpatrolapplicant. He did not, to our knowledge, claim to be a polygrapher. We were able to confirm by other means that he was.
We welcome input about CBP’s polygraph practices from anyone with knowledge thereof.