Suicides Among Border Patrol

ENG 121 Feb 6th, 2011 Suicides among Border Patrol Illegal immigrants have always been a great issue for many countries in the world. The US is one of those countries that put a lot of effort to prevent illegal entry of those immigrants. There were nearly one million illegal immigrants that entered the US in 2010. To reduce that great number, the government and in particular the border patrol agents have already put lots of exertion to the action. Working in the rank of the border patrol is not an easy job. It is a stressful job that often gets the agents to end their life. In January, 2010 Rich Matthews and Alicia A. Caldwell the two associate press video journalist and writer wrote an article named “Border Patrol sees spike in suicides” to tackle the issues why the rate of border patrol officers suicide is so high in Texas. Having a highly dangerous job that produces an enormous amount of stresses is really causing the border patrol officers to kill themselves. The suicide rate of border patrol agents has strongly increased since 2004. The two authors mainly discuss what are the reasons of those suicides that committed by border patrol officers. First, they believe that with all of the improvement on the border security system, it makes the job of border patrolling from thrilling down to boring. Second, they suppose that having sympathy and feel bad toward to the innocent immigrant is a lot stressful for the agents. Finally, they think that seeing and dealing with violence on a daily basis also make the agents suicidal. All of these causes are real life factors that border patrol agents have to deal with everyday. They create an enormous amount of stress on the agents. Some of them found the way out of the stress, but some chose to kill themselves so that they do not have to face the stress anymore. The article to a certain degree has reflected what it is to be a border patrol officer. The amount of stress they have to deal with is