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"Moving from where people did not know much about those who hate us actively is hard," said Chris Harris, a 21-year-old agent and Border Patrol union leader until his retirement in June. 2018. "There is no doubt that morale has been poor in the past and that it is catastrophic now. I know a lot of guys just want to leave. "
EDUARDO JACOBO, AGENT OF THE EL CENTRO SECTOR OF CALIFORNIA:
The difference between doing the work now and when I started is like day and night. Before, it was an adrenaline rush when you were taking people with drugs. You were doing more police stuff. Now it's humanitarian work. If you ask anyone to be part of the border patrol, he plays a movie scene in his head, jumps into a building on fire and saves lives. Now it means taking care of children and giving them formula milk.
By and large, the agency has volunteered to enforce the toughest immigration policies of the Trump administration. In videos released last year, border patrol officers were seen destroying water jugs left in part of the Arizona desert, where many migrants have been found dead.
Some of those who worked at the agency in previous years said that it had changed over the last decade and that an attitude of contempt towards migrants – the feeling of being opportunists who have caused their own problems and do not deserve a warm welcome – is now the rule, not the exception.
"Intense criticism of the Border Patrol is necessary and important, because I think there is a culture of cruelty or cruelty," said Francisco Cantú, a former agent who is the author of "The line becomes a river". a memoir about his stay in the agency from 2008 to 2012. "There is a lack of supervision. There is a lot of impunity.
The Border Patrol was created in 1924. The first officers were recruited from the offices of the Texas Rangers and the local sheriff. They have largely focused on prohibition-era whiskey bootleggers, often supplying their own horses and saddles. Although riding units still exist, the agency's culture hardly resembles its past.
It has become a sprawling arm of Canada Customs and Border Protection, the country's largest federal law enforcement agency, responsible for 7,000 miles of the northern and southern borders of the United States, 95,000 miles of shoreline and 328 entry points. In practical terms, border patrol centers along the Mexican border, known as sectors, function as fiefdoms.
In border towns, area managers become familiar names and make annual speeches about the state of the borders. In the 1990s, Silvestre Reyes, El Paso Area Manager, used his popularity to win a seat in Congress.
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