By Stephanie Sanchez
El Paso Times
EL PASO, Texas — Alcohol was illegal when the U.S. Border Patrol was formed in 1924. It had 415 inspectors who rode horses on investigations.
The Border Patrol, now an important drug-fighting operation, turned 85 years old Thursday, and its chief said it had much to celebrate.
A sophisticated agency with 19,000 agents, aircraft, special units and high-tech equipment, the Border Patrol’s primary goals are to prevent terrorists from crossing into the United States, limiting illegal immigration and catching human traffickers and drug smugglers.
National Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar traveled from Washington, D.C., to El Paso for the birthday celebration at the National Border Patrol Museum. The event included the traditional presentation of the colors, the national anthem, an honor guard performance and a brief reading of the agency’s history.
Newly appointed U.S. border czar Alan Bersin also attended. He said he would try to help bring the agency to the “next level of greatness.”
The Border Patrol, he said, has gone from being “under-resourced and under-appreciated” to a respected law-enforcement agency.
Bersin’s close ties with the agency began in 1995 when then-Attorney General Janet Reno appointed him to coordinate border law enforcement from South Texas to Southern California.
“It is on occasions like this that we transmit the values that an institution has. We remember the past and we take the flame of the accomplishments of the past and we light the future,” he said.
At least 200 Border Patrol agents from the area stood at attention behind an audience that included several high-ranking El Paso and Fort Bliss officials, including FBI Special Agent in Charge David Cuthbertson and Maj. Gen. Howard Bromberg.
Although the agency was born during Prohibition, the job of patrolling the border had already been going on for almost four decades.
In 1885, fewer than 75 men on horseback apprehended Chinese immigrants who crossed the border at El Paso to try to avoid Chinese-exclusion laws. The lawmen, called Mounted Guards, were assigned to the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1904.
The agency became the U.S. Border Patrol, attached to the Department of Labor, on May 28, 1924.
A year later, about 450 men patrolled the Mexican and Canadian borders and more than 2,000 miles along the Gulf of Mexico coastline.
Each agent was provided with only a badge and a revolver by the government. Each was paid $1,680 a year, but had to furnish his own horse and saddle. In 1928, agents received their first uniforms.
These days, agents track people in the desert on all-terrain vehicles, in helicopters, on horseback and in sport utility vehicles. The agency also uses advanced technology, such as sensor lights and night-vision cameras, to do its job.
“We are evolving as an organization, we are transforming as an organization and we are transforming the borders,” Aguilar said. “That transformation is a safer and more secure border.
“But there is also transformation, which is not unexpected, in the manner that our adversaries and enemies operate. So it’s important for us to stay ahead of those adversaries and enemies. That’s what we look towards in the future.”
Copyright 2009 El Paso Times