The chain of events I am referring to is the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. With the formation of the Monopoly of Law Enforcement entities and a push for integration and cooperation the Border Patrol has been relegated to a whitewashed version of its former lore. Agents are no longer recognized as expert trackers and the number 1 interdictors of drugs and money amongst American law enforcement entities (which we still are by the way).
The Border Patrol is losing its identity fast and soon we will be no more that glamorous Border Guards as the press likes to term us. We will be the keepers of the fence and the agency will file us away behind a pain of glass that says don’t feed the animals.
I hope you can sense the bitterness in my words. Its real and its visceral. I am not only bitter but I am pissed off. How can you have 25-30 year veterans retiring without a mention to anyone yet the commissioner flies in a Blackhawk to talk to the troops that are forced to listen and it makes the headlines. How can the Border Patrol get away with systematically cutting the pay of its agents and say “oh, we are just managing!” How come K-9 officers are required to do the same job they did last year but for less pay and no one seems to care. The hill seems to think we are just whining for something we don’t deserve. I say to any one of them. Come do my job for 17 years and then tell me I don’t deserve every penny I am paid. Miss the numerous gatherings and functions because I can’t get the day off. Be shipped away to some desolate garden spot in the desert for months at a time away from your family. See what I have seen and do what I have done and then tell me I don’t deserve it.
Border Patrol Agents are a dying breed. I mean that literally. Agents have the highest suicide rate amongst American Law Enforcement agencies. What is the response of the agency? They make a computer course and make it mandatory for the agents to see. They cut the benefits of the Employee Assistance Program. This is their response.
This chain of events has not stopped it continues daily. You don’t have to go far just look at the Border Patrol vehicles. What do you see? No Border Patrol logo! You see a Department of Homeland Security sticker (really it’s a sticker)!
The Border Patrol has a respected history. I am just afraid we will become history the way things are going!
