THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

There have been numerous stories lately about the failure of the Border Patrol to police itself, including its prediliction for using border jumpers, and sometimes Mexicans inside Mexico, for target practice. The latest investigation of the Border Patrol is of the internal affairs division, which is supposed to conduct this kind of investigation.

The internal affairs division of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is being investigated for falsifying documents, intentionally misplacing employee complaints and bungling misconduct reports as part of a coverup to mask its failure to curb employee wrongdoing, a McClatchy investigation has found.

The inquiry of the nation’s largest federal law enforcement agency also involves a much broader array of allegations, including an inner-office sexual relationship between two high-ranking officials, who themselves sometimes oversee investigations of similar illicit affairs. According to three Customs and Border Protection officials, investigators quietly interviewed witnesses this spring as part of a potential criminal case that reflected badly on the leadership of former division chief James Tomsheck and at least two of his deputies.

The investigation already was under way when the Obama administration earlier this month removed Tomsheck, who had run the internal affairs division since 2006.

The allegations taint a unit that must grapple with recurring accusations that Customs and Border Protection personnel have abused migrants, including children, taken bribes and conspired with drug cartels.

“There were so many allegations of wrongdoing involving the internal affairs division you’d need a flow chart to sort them all out,” said one of the agency officials, who asked to remain unnamed because the inquiry is ongoing. “It’s insane because this division is supposed to be looking into employee misconduct, yet it is being accused of the very same corruption it is supposed to be investigating.”

The internal affairs division has been further shaken by two suicides of internal affairs officers in less than a year, including one retired veteran Secret Service agent who had overseen the division’s Houston office.

History is a teacher few people listen to. If they did they would recognize that a bloated bureaucracy is more interested in continuing itself than performing its function. And the rot in the Border Patrol is just one more example of that.