Posted on 01/23/2008 5:40:11 PM PST by CedarDave
ALTAR VALLEY, Ariz (Reuters) - U.S. Border Patrol agent Galen Huffman leans over the saddle to look at faint tracks in a cattle trail leading up from the Mexico border.
He follows the tracks at a brisk trot through thick brush, up and down into rocky washes, then pauses as his horse twitches its ears and turns around nervously.
"I have bodies," he says, as the first of a group of 11 illegal immigrants ... peel themselves up from the desert floor several miles from the nearest road.
Horses have been part of the Border Patrol since the agency was founded to secure the United States borders against liquor smugglers and unlawful immigrants in the 1920s, and now they are making a comeback.
Agents dressed in leather chaps and broad-brimmed hats are increasingly being used to regain control over the most rugged areas of the southwest frontier with Mexico and now on the northern border with Canada.
"Most of the traffic is being pushed into these mountainous areas which are harder to work. They are very remote," said Bobbi Schad, a horse patrol supervisor from Tucson. "With a horse you can get up in there."
"They realized we were so much better at controlling certain areas, so they said 'hey, let's keep utilizing an old-school tool and go back to the basics.'"
When the Border Patrol was founded in 1924, recruits on the southwest border had to provide their own horses, tack and guns, although they were given bullets, animal feed and $25 a week.
~~snip~~
Like their forebears, present-day Border Patrol agents continue to use sturdy quarter horses -- so called as they are the fastest breed over a quarter mile, and are also renowned for their strength and stamina.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“That’s American as Hell!”
I love it.
Horses are good, but alligators and moats are better.
A little inspired to up the border security after today’s events in Egypt, are we? GOOD! Build the freakin’ fence already!
Are the horses allowed to shoot?
We’re building the fence out of horses??
Shades of the Rangers.
I used to go riding along that border...just for fun years ago. What a change!
The USDA used to call their people on horseback “tick riders.” Before there was a Department of Homeland Security I worked with former Border Patrol people who had become Immigration Officers. Most were tough characters who would “shinny” up a rope to board a ship.
Unable to locate his stray cattle, Cowboy Bob turns to herding people.
“Don’t try to understand ‘em, just rope, ride and brand ‘em”...
I keep thinking a line of trebuchets on the border would be AWESOME. We could load them up with cheap burritos, rot gut tequila and those stupid little dirty cartoon books they all seem to love so much. Problem solved.
If I knew what “the they” meant I’d tell ya. But I don’t, so I wont.
Horses on the border are better than the horse’s asses in Congress.
So true!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......!!!!!!!!!!!
The USBP never stopped using horses.
I love it!!!!
Ping
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