[18] Months later, in November 2021, The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) declined to investigate allegations against the agents on horseback.

[20] El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Silvestre Reyes started a program called "Operation Hold the Line".

The strategy has five main objectives: The United States border is a barely discernible line in the uninhabited deserts, canyons, or mountains and rivers.

[28] Transportation checks are inspections of interior-bound conveyances, which include buses, commercial aircraft, passenger and freight trains, and marine craft.

[30] The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (signed by President Bush on December 17, 2004) authorized hiring an additional 10,000 agents, "subject to appropriation".

In October 2007, environmental groups and concerned citizens filed a restraining order hoping to halt the construction of the fence, set to be built between the United States and Mexico.

[37] Environmentalists claim that the ecosystem could be affected because a border fence would restrict movement of all animal species, which in turn would keep them from water and food sources on one side or another.

He suggested that the Rio Grande be widened and deepened to provide for a natural barrier to hinder illegal aliens and drug smugglers.

Since 2006, the U.S. Border Patrol has relinquished its littoral law enforcement missions in the Great Lakes and territorial seas to the Office of Air and Marine.

The strategy included increased enforcement and extensive fencing near border cities, with the two-fold purpose of deflecting aliens to remote areas where they could more easily be detected and apprehended, as well as using mountains, deserts, and Rio Grande as a deterrent to easy passage.

[43][44] The "funnel effect" created by both these strategies has contributed to the deaths of thousands of aliens, whose remains are often found in the hot desert or freezing mountains.

[48] The beacons are solar powered and highly visible, and have a button which alerts Border Patrol agents by radio signal, after which a helicopter or ground unit is dispatched.

The Border Patrol adopted the Beretta Model 96D, a .40 S&W caliber semi-automatic pistol (modified for double-action only) (with 11-round capacity magazines) as its duty issue sidearm in 1995.

On April 9, 2019, CBP announced that the U.S. Border Patrol would transition from the .40 caliber H&K P2000 to an unnamed 9-millimeter Glock pistol, by the end of fiscal year 2021.

An extensive modernization drive has ensured that these vehicles are equipped with wireless sets in communication with a central control room.

[59] On May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers with an AR-15 rifle.

Davila escaped back into Mexico, and the agents discovered that the van contained a million dollars worth of marijuana (about 750 pounds).

Ramos was convicted of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and a civil rights violation.

[68] Compeán was found guilty on 11 counts, including discharging a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, which by itself carries a federally mandated 10-year minimum sentence.

[70] On January 19, 2009, President Bush commuted the sentences of both Ramos and Compean, effectively ending their prison term on March 20, 2009,[71] and they were released on February 17, 2009.

[74] Although the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation concluded on November 6, 2015, that Hernández-Rojas died of a heart attack, an offer of a million-dollar settlement was made to his family.

[79] Sergio Adrian Hernandez was a teenager who was shot once and killed on June 7, 2010, by Border Patrol agents under a bridge crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

[81] On June 10, Mexican President Felipe Calderón called on the United States to launch a "thorough, impartial" probe into the deaths of two Mexican nationals, including the 14-year-old Hernandez, at the hands of U.S. border police: "I demand the United States government conduct a thorough, impartial...investigation, concluding with an establishment of the facts and punishment of the culprits.

"[83] On June 12, 2010, the television network Univision aired cellphone video footage of the incident, after which Mexican legislators called unsuccessfully for the extradition of the officer accused of the shooting.

"[90][91] In 2018, activists alleged that water and food supplies left for illegal aliens were regularly destroyed by the Border Patrol.

Between 2010 and 2011 alleged excessive use of force by Border Patrol agents and Field Operations officers led to the death of six Mexican citizens.

"[77] There are allegations of abuse by the United States Border Patrol, such as the ones reported by Jesus A. Trevino, that concludes in an article published in the Houston Journal of International Law (2006) with a request to create an independent review commission to oversee the actions of the Border Patrol, and that creating such review board will make the American public aware of the "serious problem of abuse that exists at the border by making this review process public" and that "illegal immigrants deserve the same constitutionally-mandated humane treatment of citizens and legal residents".

[97] In 1998, Amnesty International investigated allegations of ill-treatment and brutality by officers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and particularly the Border Patrol.

[103] According to Reveal News, between 2006 and 2016 more than 130 officers employed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection were caught in alleged acts of mission-compromising corruption – often by letting drugs, undocumented immigrants, or both into the country.

The NBPC's executive committee is staffed by current and retired Border Patrol agents and, along with its constituent locals, employs a staff of a dozen attorneys and field representatives.