CBP Drops Questions About Illegal Drug Use From Pre-Employment Polygraph Screening (original) (raw)

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.