By Maggie Ybarra
El Paso Times
EL PASO — Border Patrol agents are receiving heavy national attention this month. The spotlight is on them because of a confrontation in which an agent in El Paso allegedly shot and killed a 15-year-old Mexican boy.
The agent said rocks were thrown at him before he fired. Investigations of the shooting are underway in the United States and Mexico.
Working agents usually are tight-lipped about what they do. John Hubert, a retired agent and field operations supervisor with 30 years of Border Patrol experience, is under no strictures. He talked about the demands of the job, and what it’s like to enforce the law on America’s southern border.
Q: Why are Border Patrol agents so secretive about their jobs?
A: I learned early on that if you’re a Border Patrol agent in El Paso... basically you’re an object of scorn to about 75 percent of the population. But if you get away from the border and go somewhere else, people look at the Border Patrol agent as one of the upper-level law enforcement officers in the U.S. If you go to Dallas and tell them you’re a Border Patrol agent, there’s a lot of respect. If you tell someone in El Paso you’re a Border Patrol agent, well, I’ve seen restaurants refuse to serve Border Patrol agents. You go in there in your uniform and they tell you to leave.
Q: If there was something you could change for Border Patrol agents right now, what would that be?
A: More support on an agency level. I just heard today that the attorney general ... that they’re looking into the civil rights violations (in the recent shooting case). More than likely, he has the support of everybody on the local level but once you get out of El Paso and into the upper levels of management and into the central office of Washington, D.C., it’s gone. The FBI is going to do their investigation, and they’ll do a great investigation, but when you get the attorney general up there already commenting on, “We’re going to look into what if this guy’s civil rights were violated?” What does that do for the guy in the field?
Q: What major changes did you see in a 30-year career?
A: The size of the Border Patrol. When I came to El Paso there was a 100-man station, which was the biggest station in the Border Patrol, and there were about 1,000 Border Patrol agents. Now there’s about 14,000 to 15,000 Border Patrol agents and about 300 per station. Also, there has been a significant increase in narcotics smuggling and the level of violence associated with that.
Q: What are some of the major differences you see between being a Border Patrol agent back then and what Border Patrol agents are dealing with now?
A: Policy mainly. The Border Patrol, at that time, was part of the Department of Justice. Now they’re a part of the Department of Homeland Security. Basically, they’re just another alphabet agency. They have the same tasks to perform, but they’re under completely different guidelines and a completely different structure. There are more politics involved in the administration of the Border Patrol than there were 10 years or longer ago.
Q: What is the scariest case you recall as a Border Patrol agent?
A: I was attacked one time by a group of seven men with rocks, and I was pretty severely injured. Of course, you know, you get into situations where the next guy available is more than 45 minutes away and a situation where you’re on your own, if it isn’t handled right, can go terribly wrong.
Q: When you were hit with rocks how did you defend yourself?
A: You do what you have to do to protect yourself. In the situation I was involved with, I did receive quite a few serious injuries and I was off work a week or two. Being assaulted is not really that uncommon. Whether it’s rocks being thrown at you or a hand-to-hand combat situation or being shot at, it’s not particularly uncommon.
Copyright 2010 El Paso Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper