Walking the Line

U.S. Border Patrol recruits new agents in Knoxville during a hiring blitz

“In the twilight hours, when most of the country is sleeping, we’re out there. Guarding our borders. Protecting the homeland,” booms the voice-over in the U.S. Border Patrol promotional video. While he’s speaking, there’s a montage: A Hummer rumbles down a sandy desert hill. A helicopter flies overhead. A group of ATV-riders zoom by, leaving a trail of dust in their wake. Horses gallop. All as indiscriminate rock music blares.

“The Border Patrol,” the voice continues. “We protect America. Are you up to the challenge?”

It looks more like the trailer for a new action film than a recruiting tool, but before playing the six-minute video, Border Patrol agent and national recruiter Ruben Duran informed the four BP hopefuls watching that none of the people in it are actors; they’re all legitimate BP agents and it’s what dozens of Knoxvillians are hoping to become as well.

On July 26, the U.S. Border Patrol engaged in its latest “hiring blitz.” Recruiters visited six cities (Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Ky., Little Rock, Ark., and Baton Rouge, La.) in one day to hire 1,300 more officers before the end of 2008, per a request from President George W. Bush.

Border Patrol is a para-military organization categorized under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Defense. The Department of Homeland Security was created in June 2002 as a response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but Border Patrol started in 1924 with less than 500 agents, as Immigration Naturalization Services and contained within the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization.

Along with the reclassification came a broader focus, according to Katherine Thibeault, senior patrol agent and national recruiter, who says agents spend about half their time intercepting undocumented immigrants and half their time seizing narcotics and contraband weapons and smugglers. For example, between July 24 and July 30, according to the U.S. Border Patrol Weekly Blotter, agents seized 17,991 pounds of marijuana, 240 pounds of cocaine and $15,868 in cash. Agents also arrested five sex offenders and three gang members.

Ideally, agents also intercept potential large-scale terrorists, Thibeault says, though consistent data isn’t released on the number of terrorists caught on the U.S./Mexico border.
 
But some, like Knoxvillian Mónica Hernández, of Highlander Research and Education Center’s Pueblos de Latinoamérica project and board chair of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, say the BP causes more harm than good. Hernández’s job at the non-profit Highlander Center assists Latino grassroots leadership and organizations in the Southeast, and Hernández visited the U.S./Mexico border in 2007 to see the BP’s work for herself.

In a special Highlander report on immigration issues, Hernández states increased border patrol has lead to an increased market for human trafficking and drug trafficking and that the policy is often used as a political tool rather than to protect U.S. citizens.

“It is considered political suicide to question the ethics, impact, or even the success (or, rather, failure) of our border policy,” writes Hernández. “In the current political climate, fixing the broken immigration system — through legalization, for example — means trading off the rights  — and in some cases, lives  — of migrants along border communities.”

Hernández did not return KV phone calls before press time.

Catalina Nieto, public awareness officer for Tennessee Immigrant and Refuge Right Coalition, agrees that the Border Patrol is not addressing the real problem but merely treats the symptoms of a larger issue. "Right now, the focus is on enforcing policies that don't work," she says. "Instead of stepping back and realizing we have a system of unrealistic channels, we're focused on enforcing policies that aren't working.