Trouble Along the Border: Setbacks and Obstacles Faced by the Us Boarder Patrol

The U.S. Border Patrol has a long history of patrolling the borders of this country.   Even though the U.S. Border Patrol on the whole does a respectful job and performs the duties vigilantly like all other law enforcement agencies there are always those who disagree and find troubles with in the system.   There have been many who criticize the organization for being racist, listing problems such as internal corruption and criminal acts and cite various other problems that are either directly or indirectly results stemming from the organization.   I believe that overall it is an upstanding organization but like any other company or law enforcement agency it will always have certain problems.   Unfortunately some of the problems are hard to ignore.  
The United States Border has been patrolled since at least 1904 when the Mounted Guards inspected the area.   They were based out of El Paso, Texas and searched from Texas to California looking for illegal Chinese immigrants.   The modern United States Border Patrol was established in 1924 when Congress passed the Labor Appropriation Act.   This act gave the Border Patrol the power and purpose to secure the 1,951 mile southern border and set up inspection stations.   The Border Patrol continued to expand throughout the century and is currently seeing a boom in recruitment.   The agency is set to expand from 11,700 agents to 18,000 by 2009.  
I do not think anyone would disagree that America has a problem with people illegally crossing its borders.   Illegal aliens seem to be in the forefront of many news stories lately.   According to a Time magazine study the number of illegal aliens that pass across the border into the United States just in the year 2004 totaled 3 million (Barlett &
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Steele, 2004 p. 51).   If their study is correct that would mean that there are enough illegal aliens entering America to completely fill up 22,000 Boeing 737 planes.   That calculates to 60 full planes entering the U.S. ever day for a... [continues]

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