"Good fences make good neighbors," wrote poet Robert Frost. What is the purpose of a country's border, and its border control agents? To protect the nation from the entry of terrorists or smugglers, of course, but also to help facilitate the smooth arrival of legal immigrants and asylum seekers. What to do about the U.S.-Mexico border and how to stop drug and human trafficking and illegal immigrants from crossing it is constantly in the news—from presidential hopefuls on the campaign trail to elected leaders' debates about funding and reform.
In September, a federal judge ruled that the state of Texas must remove a 1000-foot-long wall of floating buoys in the Rio Grande, which Governor Greg Abbott is currently appealing. New York State Governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, said the border is "too open" and that Congress should "limit" the number allowed to cross in the wake of the more than 100,000 migrants who have sought asylum in New York City this year.
But at the center of whatever policies and laws are in effect, are U.S. Border Patrol agents, who are tasked with protecting the country's border from threats. Vincent Vargas was one of those agents from 2009 to 2015. Formerly an Army Ranger who saw combat in Iran and Afghanistan, and now having just finished a five-season run as an actor on FX's hit show Mayans M.C., Vargas gives an insider's view into the dangerous job of a border agent. In his new book, Borderline: Defending the Homefront (St. Martin's), Vargas provides an inside look into what the job entails. This excerpt portrays one encounter that could have gone very wrong, and how he thinks about the policies necessary to balance humanitarian issues against the country's defense.
There are always threats on the border; everyone can be lethal, especially at the river's edge.
One day, my partner and I were cutting (checking the terrain for signs of disruptions) the drag road by the river in Eagle Pass North Sector in an area called Local Down, which is known to have particularly fast traffic. By that, I mean it's only about a three-to-five-minute run to the neighborhood to the north. Once an illegal gets to an area where there are houses, they are as good as gone.
As we were cutting the drag, we noticed some fresh signs of two people. We couldn't tell by the look of the prints if they were local fishermen or "good traffic" (signs of positive foot traffic necessitating further investigation).
The prints looked wet, as if the people who made them had just emerged from the river. In these areas, it's not uncommon to see U.S. fishermen on the river.
We didn't have much time if it was good traffic, so we started driving north in the assumed path of a possible illegal entry. As we began to zoom to get to the top, we saw two guys wearing old-school orange life vests. They were walking aimlessly. It was confusing to me. I asked them, "What are you guys doing down here?"
They replied, "Fishing."
"What's your citizenship?"
The taller one of the two was starting to get agitated.
"American man, I live right up there..." he replied as his voice trailed off.
Then the story got weird.
He was emotional and uneasy, and he said: "We were fishing, and our friend fell into the river and drowned."
The shorter one confirmed his statements with the same amount of concern.
They were now both crying and asking us to follow them to the river and wanting us to help them.
"Please officer, help us, he was right over there."
He pointed toward the base of the river, which was about a 10-foot walk down a slope through the cane. My partner, Andre Molina, called on the radio for a boat crew to get in the water immediately for a possible rescue.
I was contemplating the rationale behind this whole story. These two were in tears, but for some reason, this all felt strange. My mind was telling me something was off, but the emotions they were displaying seemed absolutely honest.
The taller one stood behind me, telling me to go down to the river, because that's where his friend was last seen. I hesitated and told him to go first. As they both stepped down into the cane and started down the path to the river, they kept insisting that I join them.
Just as I was going to meet them, they jumped into the water and said, "F**** YOU PUTO!" and swam back to the Mexican side laughing. These two "fishermen" were nothing more than a couple of smugglers who made up this wild story so that they could get away.
What had me on edge was this: What if I did go down to the river? Would they have tried to murder me? Their acting was incredible. It made me uncomfortable to see how smooth their lies were and how in sync they were. This is just another example of the ever-changing threats we face on the border, and it served as a wake-up call for my partner and me not to get complacent.
Border Patrol agents face unique challenges in their line of duty, and while it's important not to exaggerate the dangers they encounter, certain situations can escalate rapidly, especially when dealing with groups that significantly outnumber the agents responsible for patrolling a specific sector. It's critical to understand this in any discussion about border security or immigration policy.
What Is Border Security Really?
One of the most prominent challenges facing our country is the inability to separate border security from immigration policy. Independently, both border security and immigration policy are important, and we should have an informed discussion and find ways to improve both. But until there is a fundamental understanding that border security is not immigration policy, and vice versa, we will change neither for the better.
The most fundamental question we must ask is: What does a "secure border" really mean? It is ironic that if you ask people if they want a secure border, most will say yes. However, if you ask them to describe a secure border, their answers are vastly different.
In my estimation, a secure border is a dynamic and relative state predicated on risk. We all assess risk throughout our lives. We have people and assets we want to protect, and, based on our assessment, we mitigate risk to do so. For example, most people feel secure in their homes. They may live in a gated community, have bolt locks on exterior doors or have a monitored alarm system or other means of feeling secure. Conversely, others choose not to take many—or any—of these measures. Why? The reason is clear. It is because each person takes what they believe to be reasonable action to minimize risk in their lives, but they also know that no matter how much protection they might have in their home, they cannot guarantee that their homes will never be broken into.
Why should our border be any different? People's perception of a secure border may mean Border Patrol agents patrolling the line; they may see integrated surveillance towers and an 18-foot border wall, hear the helicopters in the night sky and "feel secure." However, does deploying personnel, technology and infrastructure equate to a secure border? It's a good start, but unless risk is taken into account, it provides merely an illusion of security. For example, for many years the San Diego Sector was held up as the "model" for border security. With 60 linear miles of border, the sector has most of its area of operations under surveillance. They boast the highest percentage of fenced or walled border in the country, which thousands of agents on patrol. People from other states will point to San Diego and ask: "Why can't our border be secure like theirs?" Those same people will be surprised to know that 85 percent of all sophisticated drug tunnels found along the U.S. border were dug in the San Diego Sector. Is that a secure border?
Maintain the Chaos
Border security can ultimately be achieved if one recognizes it as a dynamic condition based on evolving risks and not as an end state. A good place to start is to define what a secure border looks (and doesn't look) like and then strive to do better. If you can't define the problem, no solution will work.
As with any problem or situation requiring a resolution, people will often turn to the obvious questions of "How do we fix it?" or "What does winning look like?" However, you must first consider whether the problem you are trying to solve has an obvious solution or, if not, what the trade-offs are in such a situation. Often, the solution lies in doing your best to maintain and stabilize a certain level of acceptable chaos rather than trying to completely solve the problem.
Border security must be viewed through the lens of maintenance, attention, acceptable risk and loss and the understanding that the goal is harmony between two diametrically opposed concepts: security and freedom.
Middle Ground
The questions then becomes: What sort of border do we as Americans wish to have? What adequately represents our values and morals, and what sort of border can we envision? How do we have a border where trade and humanitarian considerations simultaneously exist alongside a security posture focused on protecting our nation, as well as degrading criminal organizations operating on both sides of the border? The dial should be set somewhere in the middle, and there should also be enough flexibility to regularly adjust it in one direction or another. These minor adjustments should be guided by both security concerns and humanitarian considerations to ensure that while remaining the land of freedom and opportunity, the United States should never compromise its own security and freedom.
Adapted from Borderline. Copyright © 2023 Vince Vargas. Published by St. Martin's Press.
