[custom_adv] The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is an American federal law enforcement agency. Its mission is to detect and prevent illegal aliens, terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States, and prevent illegal trafficking of people and contraband. [custom_adv] It is the mobile, uniformed law enforcement arm of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).With over 21,000 agents, the U.S. Border Patrol is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. [custom_adv] The Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol is Carla Provost.Mounted watchmen of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor patrolled the border in an effort to prevent illegal crossings as early as 1904, but their efforts were irregular and undertaken only when resources permitted. [custom_adv] The inspectors, usually called "mounted guards", operated out of El Paso, Texas. Though they never totaled more than 75, they patrolled as far west as California trying to restrict the flow of illegal Chinese immigration [custom_adv] In March 1915, Congress authorized a separate group of mounted guards, often referred to as "mounted inspectors". Most rode on horseback, but a few operated automobiles, motorcycles and boats. Although these inspectors had broader arrest authority, they still largely pursued Chinese aliens trying to avoid the National Origins Act and Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. [custom_adv] These patrolmen were Immigration Inspectors, assigned to inspection stations, and could not watch the border at all times. U.S. Army soldiers along the southwest border performed intermittent border patrolling, but this was secondary to "the more serious work of military training." [custom_adv] Aliens encountered illegally in the U.S. by the Army were directed to the immigration inspection stations. Texas Rangers were also sporadically assigned to patrol duties by the state, and their efforts were noted as "singularly effective". [custom_adv] Badge of the United States Border Patrol, circa 1939.Former badge when the agency was under the Dept. of Labor. Badge of the United States Border Patrol, circa 1999.The former badge, when the agency was under the Dept. of Justice.Badge of the United States Border Patrol, circa 2013 [custom_adv] The current badge after the agency became a part Homeland Security. The U.S. Border Patrol was founded on May 28, 1924 (by the Labor Appropriation Act of 1924[5]) as an agency of the United States Department of Labor to prevent illegal entries along the Mexico–United States border and the Canada–U.S. border. [custom_adv] The first Border Patrol station began operations in Detroit, Michigan in June 1924. A second station in El Paso, Texas began operations in July 1924. Additional operations were established along the Gulf Coast in 1927 to perform crewman control to ensure that foreign crewmen departed on the same ship on which they arrived. [custom_adv] In 1932, the Border Patrol was divided into two offices. Mexican border operations were directed from El Paso, Texas and Canadian border operations were directed from Detroit, Michigan. [custom_adv] The Canadian border operations from Detroit employed more men than the El Paso operations along the Mexican border because of a focus on the prevention of liquor smuggling during prohibition. [custom_adv] Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Executive Order 6166 formed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1933 by consolidation of the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Naturalization. [custom_adv] Following the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Border Patrol staffing doubled to 1,500 in 1940, and the INS was moved from the Department of Labor to the U.S. Department of Justice. Additional stations were temporarily added along the Gulf Coast, Florida and the Eastern Seaboard during the 1960s after Fidel Castro triumphed in the Cuban Revolution and that was followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis. [custom_adv] INS was decommissioned in March 2003 when its operations were divided between CBP, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.In the wake of the attacks of September 11, the Border Patrol was placed under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, and preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States was added to its mission.
