TUCSON, Ariz. The U.S. Border Patrol is targeting people leaving the military in an effort to meet the president's goal of adding 6,000 new agents by the end of 2008.

The agency has raised the upper age limit for new agents by three years to age 40, to attract men and women who have completed careers in the armed services, said Border Patrol Tucson Sector chief Robert W. Gilbert.

And more help could be on the way, too: The Senate's immigration-reform proposal instructs the Department of Homeland Security to consider offering incentives to members of the reserves or former armed-service members with two years of separation from service.

"They go in at 18 years old, do 20 years, and they are 38," Gilbert said recently, in an Arizona Daily Star editorial board meeting. "Why wouldn't we want to grab that resource that the American people have already paid to train and just continue with a new line of training? A lot of the skill sets are similar, but now it's enforcement, not military."

Critics decry militarization

Trained and physically fit soldiers make sense to fill the jobs, but critics question the logic behind bringing soldiers trained for war to a border with a friendly neighbor. And the agency's union says raising the age limit could prove detrimental in the long term.

"From this moment forward, there'll never ever be any justification for the Border Patrol to say, 'We're not militarizing the border,'" said the Rev. Robin Hoover, the founder of Humane Borders, which places water tanks throughout the desert. "We will now be militarizing our frontier, and there is no getting around that. And it will have consequences for civil rights."

The training for soldiers is quite different than for agents, Hoover said. Soldiers are given heavy doses of weapons training that isn't necessary for Border Patrol agents, who spend most of their time dealing with "economic migrants" who aren't dangerous, he said.

"If that is pre-eminent in your mind, you are going to be more apt to use it," said Hoover, about weapons training.

Idea not a novel one

Accusing ex-military personnel of being more prone to unjustified violence or dangerous is "garbage," said Dave Stoddard, a former Border Patrol supervisor who retired in 1996 after 27 years with the agency.

"Military has rules of engagement. Border Patrol has rules of engagement, and as long as their rules are complied with ," Stoddard said. "Nobody comes out of the military a mass murderer. Those arguments are specious."

Filling the Border Patrol with agents who have a military background isn't novel, he said. Nearly all of his classmates who graduated with him in 1969 from the Border Patrol academy were ex-military, he said. Stoddard served three years in the Army before joining the agency.

A return to that focus would enhance an agency that depends too much on new agents who have never taken orders from anybody but "mommy and daddy," he said.

"I think it's a terrific idea for several reasons," Stoddard said. "The former military guy knows how to take orders. He doesn't get panicked in emergency situations like coming under fire. He's already familiar with weapons and strategies and tactics. And he has already dedicated three to six years to serving the country."

People with military experience who want to serve their country and have proven they can withstand rigorous training make a good match for the agency, said T.J. Bonner, president of the agents' union, the National Border Patrol Council.

Doubts cast

But raising the age limit is the latest in a series of ill-advised decisions made by agency leaders under pressure to meet the president's goal, he said. Somebody who has completed a military career and who doesn't earn a desk job could be a liability in his or her final years, he said.

"There is a reason they put in that age limit: to have a young and vigorous work force," Bonner said. "It was an ill-advised move to do that, but it is a move that reflects the level of desperation they have."

The Border Patrol is focusing its recruiting efforts on people leaving the military and on college campuses but is also trying new tactics. The agency is paying $975,000 to sponsor a Chevy NASCAR Busch Series car for 25 races in an attempt to increase the agency's household recognition, and encourage candidates to apply. The agency is also offering a $1,500 bonus to employees who refer new agents.