WASHINGTON - It seems an odd fit: U.S. Border Patrol uniforms with labels that say, "Made in Mexico."

Some agents are irate and said they are amazed and embarrassed to find that their new orders for green shirts and trousers - and maybe other uniform items - are being filled with articles of clothing manufactured south of the border.

It is an ironic twist, they said, for the agency whose job it is to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I just received a half-dozen new shirts, pants - and the labels all say they are made in Mexico," said Rich Pierce, a Tampa-based agent and executive vice president of the 16,000-member National Border Patrol Council, the agents' union. "Why can't we have uniforms made in the U.S.? What's next? Shipping our Border Patrol jobs to the Mexicans? The other agents I've talked to all think this is some bad joke."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials explained they are trying to get as much as they can for the dollar in contracting with a company that is allowed to subcontract work outside the United States.

The move comes amid a national debate over the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to foreign countries, which is expected to grow more intense as the presidential race shifts into higher gear.

"Hollywood couldn't make up satire like this. But it isn't a laughing matter," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., said Thursday. "This is another classic, boneheaded bureaucratic Washington move."

Hayworth said he likens the situation to the flap in 2001 over the Chinese-made black berets for U.S. soldiers, when members of Congress and others insisted that the Pentagon instead "Buy American." As with that fashion faux pas by the government, Hayworth said he believes the contracts that led to the Mexican-made Border Patrol uniforms should be examined and possibly canceled.

But Customs and Border Protection spokesman Jim Mitchie said, "We are buying American. But we're also buying elsewhere."

As Mitchie explained it, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection bid out and awarded a $30 million contract to VF Solutions of Nashville to supply uniforms for 30,000 border agents and customs inspectors during the 2003-2004 fiscal year that began last Oct. 1.

That contract, he said, allows the company to subcontract to plants in the United States, as well as in Mexico, Canada and the Dominican Republic. The contract can be extended, based on performance.

"Sometimes, certain plants will do the cutting (of material) and send it off to other plants for assembling," Mitchie said. "So, what's going on where, I can't tell you."

The notion that their uniforms may be produced, at least in part, in another country might be new for Border Patrol agents, he added, because until just last year their agency was part of the U.S. Department of Justice. But now within the Department of Homeland Security, he said, the agency is part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which for years has had contracts with VF Solutions.

Officials at VF Solutions this week would only say their contract clearly allows them to manufacture the uniforms in Mexico and that they are doing so. They declined to elaborate, or identify where the factories involved in making the uniforms are located.

"What we're trying to do is get as much as we can for the dollar," Mitchie said. He added that the bottom line is, "Our Border Patrol agents are very well-dressed, well-uniformed and neat and clean. And that's how it should be."

But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said he wonders who is getting the better of the deal under the arrangement.

Border Patrol agents, Bonner explained, are allowed $500 a year for uniform expenses, and they order their own uniform items as needed.

But while that yearly uniform allowance was not increased this past year, Bonner said, the costs for shirts and trousers have gone up under the VF Solutions contract.

For instance, he said, the green duty trousers have gone from $26.52 to $27.32, while the green short-sleeve duty shirts have gone from $29.06 to $29.93. In addition, Pierce said he's been receiving complaints from agents about the overall lower quality of the new shirts and pants.

Bonner and Pierce said the union is checking into whether other items that can be ordered from VF Solutions, such as official Border Patrol uniform jackets, neckties, sweaters, insulated boots and raincoats, are being made outside the United States, and whether their prices have gone up.

"They may claim they're saving money," Bonner said. "But any savings aren't being passed on to us. The savings must be going to the VF Solutions."

He added: "I think that this is just the wrong thing to do; it's the wrong message."