This week in USBP History, Vol. 56

September 25 - October 1

Good morning!
 
Welcome to another This Week in USBP History!  
 
This week I stumbled upon a pretty significant document, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Fiscal Year 2023 Congressional Justification.  Basically, this is CBP's fiscal plan which of course includes the U.S. Border Patrol.  I know this 563-page document may be a dry read for some.  So, I took the liberty of reviewing it for you...
 
Below is a highlight of some the funding for the Patrol.  Keep in mind that not all of the funding is under he control of the Patrol such as the line items for facilities and uniforms.
 
USBP's total budget - $5.4 billion

• Border Patrol Facilities Sustainment - $158.7 million
• $104.8 million for USBP Hiring/Training/Resiliency: Supports hiring an additional 300 BPAs ($65.3 million) and basic training throughput ($29.5 million). Funds will also support improvements and advances in CBP employees’ overall well-being ($10 million).
  • The FY 2023 request includes an increase of 300 positions, 150 full-time equivalents and $65.3M to hire additional Border Patrol Agents (BPAs). The base for this program is 19,555 positions (Agents).  19,555 is the number of agents that the USBP is supposed to have.
• Transportation Program - $84.4 million
  • The CBP Transportation program is an integrated system of contracted services to support CBP transportation needs on the Southern Border, including transportation services for the transfer of detainees, necessary medical services for detainees, and CBP facility guard services.
• Border Patrol Facilities Rent - $81.9 million
  • Border Patrol Facilities Rent: USBP’s facilities portfolio is 6.5 million square feet. It includes:
    • 134 Border Patrol Stations and Substations,
    • 20 Sector Headquarters,
    • 15 Forward Operating Bases,
    • 38 Permanent and Interim Checkpoints, and additional support facilities and infrastructure, including vehicle maintenance facilities, training buildings, and kennels.
• $60 million to build 2 USBP stations
• Border Patrol Enforcement Systems - $57.8 million
  • The Border Patrol Enforcement Systems (BPES) corresponds with enforcement network programs that allows for Planning, Detection, Classification, and Analysis of illegal border activity, the ability to provide data to external stakeholders, and the ability to provide program confluence and database architecture enhancement. 
• CBP Uniform Acquisition ($50.3 million): This cost driver includes the acquisition and management of uniform replacement requirements for approximately 50,500 CBP employees and initial issuance for 5,000 new recruits annually.
• Tactical Infrastructure - $49.5 million
  • Tactical Infrastructure provides for planning, construction, and replacement of various tactical infrastructure components, including roads, fences, gates, bridges, crossovers, lighting, electrical components, drainage structures, vegetation removal, debris removal, and maintaining towers and real property.
• Border Patrol Vehicles - $49 million
  • USBP’s fleet inventory is expected to be approximately 16,000 vehicles in FY 2023.
  • 2009-2014 when I was the USBP Fleet Manager, I requested over $100M per year.  This amount is not enough to sustain the fleet.  The Patrol's average vehicle age will increase which will equate to greater maintenance cost, less fuel efficiency and unhappy agents driving vehicles that should have been retired.
• $23 million for Border Patrol Processing Coordinators: Funds the hiring of 300 additional Border Patrol Processing Coordinators.
• TACCOM-Modernization - $13.8 million
  • Tactical Communications (TACCOM) Modernization: TACCOM Modernization is a Program of Record (PoR) that includes infrastructure and wireless voice communications and is part of TALMEC. TACCOM Modernization consists of land mobile radio (LMR) system modernization projects and the Digital in Place (DIP) project, the Radio Internet Protocol Systems (RIPS) effort, and investigates and tracks the evolution of broadband technologies and solutions.
• $13.5 million to sustain 723 Integrated Surveillance Towers
• Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) - $5.1 million
  • sUAS capability provides security along remote, isolated and inaccessible portions of the Nation’s borders, ground reconnaissance, surveillance and risk tracking (RST) capabilities. The ability to persistently and discreetly surveil remote access restricted areas along portions of the border is critical to USBP’s ability to secure the border.
• $4.2 million for USBP Intelligence Specialists: Supports hiring 33 Intelligence Specialists in FY 2023.
• The FY 2023 Budget for CBP does not include any funding for Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems.

 
Man, that's a lot of money!  Of course, me being me, I searched the document for the concepts of employee recognition, morale, retention and attrition.  Sadly, there wasn't much.  The document provides this overview:

• The programs and positions funded in this request address resiliency and safety issues in the workforce, which in turn may help to reduce suicides, safety incidents (and incident related costs), and attrition, while increasing resiliency, morale, and productivity. Employee well-being has been identified as a strategic priority in the Secretary of Homeland Security’s Strategic Infrastructure Transformation Priorities for the Department. Investing in resilience and safety is necessary to achieve this priority and better enable CBP to meet mission outcomes.

 
As I had spoken of in the email​ a couple of weeks ago, the USBP is great at responding to a crisis. However, the workforce needs an organization and leaders that are present and supporting them, every day, not just during a crisis.  A change in organizational culture is needed.  If I had a voice with USBP leadership, I'd recommend that they work to instill the tenets of Esprit de Corps as defined below.
 
But, to bring this back to Border Patrol history, in its first year, the Patrol's authorized strength was 450 Inspectors with a $1.0M budget.  99 years later, its authorized strength is 19,555 agents with a $5.4B budget!
 
As always, this week's update brings us interesting occurrences in Border Patrol history.  In 1918, we have a document written by the Father of the Border Patrol recommending that the immigration district partner with the military to address illegal crossings.  We have the official birth of the Voluntary Return in 1927.  There's an organizational chart from 1936, and the finalization of the BORTAC device in 2001.  
 
But, what commonly receives no more than a footnote in many conversations is the Patrol's contributions and sacrifices during the 1962 riots at the University of Mississippi.  Consider purchasing Joe Banco's book, HONOR FIRST:  The Unsung Heroes of Oxford, for a deeper dive of the story of the, "...U.S. Border Patrol deployment to the University of Mississippi in 1962 to defend the U.S. Constitution and ensure the enrollment of the first African-American at Ole Miss."
 
There are no Newton-Azrak Award action anniversaries this week.  But, I am highlighting two recipients from 1987 whose exact dates of action are unknown. I should also mention that a Newton-Azrak Award recipient, George E. Evancheck (award statuette, notification letter), had somehow been omitted from any lists and was at risk of being forgotten.  I have added him to the HonorFirst Newton-Azrak Award page and will add more information once it’s found. 
 
Finally, we remember two of our fallen on the first anniversaries of their deaths.
 
Enjoy the update and have a great week!
 
Cliff
PS - 

• As an open and continuous invitation to current and former USBP employees, I am always accepting photos to post in the USBP Photo Galleries and in the Upholding Honor First pages.  I sure would appreciate you visiting those pages and sending me anything that you think I could post (just attach them to a reply to this email).
• As always, make sure to explore all of the hyperlinks to documents and pages.
• Finally, please forward this blog to whomever you think may enjoy it.

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Esprit de Corps
 
The workplace climate resulting from a combination of organizational pride and employee morale.

• Organizational pride is the positive feeling experienced by employees from being part of a meaningful team that is rich in history, tradition and culture.
• Employee morale is the feeling experienced by employee based in part on their perception of:
  • Being valued by the organization,
  • Fairly compensated, and
  • Performing meaningful work.

 
Esprit de corps is reinforced through the shared goals, mission and values of the organization and its employees.

The definition turns Esprit de Corps into a simple formula and defines parts that comprise organizational pride and employee morale.

Esprit de Corps = Organizational Pride + Employee Morale

Esprit de Corps is the key to a healthy organization and engaged employees.

​Honor First is foundational to the Border Patrol's organizational pride and integral to its Esprit de Corps.

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Documents/Events

1918

• On September 24, 1918, the "Big Bend District" informed future Chief and Father of the Border Patrol Frank Berkshire (1870-1934) that help (manpower) was needed in enforce newly passed Passport Law, Executive Proclamation and regulations concerning the requirement of people to enter and exit the United Stated through a port-of-entry.  In this September 27, 1918 document, Supervising Inspector Berkshire recommended that Big Bend partner with the military in addressing the illegal crossings.

1924

• On October 1, 1924, the acting head of the Montreal District, Irving F. Wixon (1884-1962), wrote a scathing memo to the Commissioner-General.  The Montreal District included modern day Houlton, Swanton and part of Buffalo Sectors.  The first sentence is, "I find that the border patrol service in this District is a long ways from being up to standard, due principally to the fact that it has not been properly supervised."  The memo contains recommendations that include having the workforce move from location to location to prevent smugglers from adapting to regular schedules.

1927

• The concept of a Voluntary Return (VR) was introduced in 1918.  However, it became official Immigration Service policy on September 26, 1927, when General Order 97 was implemented. 
  
  • This allowed Mexican citizens not considered criminal aliens to voluntarily request departure without a formal deportation.230 The Immigration Service saw this as a cost and time savings measure, decreasing the number of deportation proceedings while expediting the removal of aliens from Mexico.
    
    • From - HONOR FIRST:  The Story of the United States Border Patrol - Volume I by Joseph Banco

1936

• See this organizational chart for the Immigration Border Patrol dated October 1, 1936.  Although difficult to see, there are 11 Immigration Districts that are divided into 25 Sub-districts.  Sectors were called "Sub-districts" at the time.

1940

• When the INS was transferred from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice, all employee badges were changed.  This document, signed on September 26, 1940, stated that the new badges had been ordered and were schedule to be delivered by November 4th.  The document also discusses penalties for employees losing badges.  

1962

• Riots at the University of Mississippi - "On September 30, 1962, protests deteriorated into a riot, and Border Patrol agents <inspectors> worked through the night alongside marshals and the National Guard to restore order." CBP source
  
  • As dawn broke on the morning of October 1, 1962, 166 of the deputized Marshals had been injured, with 77 of them being from the Border Patrol. Thirty of the injures were the result of gunshot wounds, including three Patrol Inspectors (George Branch, Steve Donnelly, and Dan Pursglove). In addition, 48 soldiers were injured. Two men in the crowd (French Reporter Paul Guihard and local Mississippian Ray Gunther) were killed by gunfire from the rioters and 375 demonstrators were injured.
    
    • From - HONOR FIRST:  The Story of the United States Border Patrol - Volume II by Joseph Banco
• To all who shall see the presents, greeting: This is to certify that the Chief of the United States Border Patrol has awarded the Purple Cross Medal to William N. Purdy for wounds sustained during the performance of his official duties as a Border Patrol Inspector on September 30, 1962, in Oxford, Mississippi.  Inspector Purdy was shot and wounded by a sniper during a riot at the University of Mississippi.  Throughout this harrowing ordeal, Inspector Purdy exhibited exemplary inner strength and courage, which are in keeping with the finest traditions of, and reflect, highly upon, the United States Border Patrol.
  
  • Note - Inspector Purdy also received a Letter of Appreciation from President Kennedy for this action.  Follow this link to see that recognition. 
    
  • William Purdy's:
    
    • USBP Purple Cross Certificate
      
    • USBP Purple Cross medal set
      
    • Memorandum from Chief of the Border Patrol David Aguilar
      
    • Newspaper plaque

1964

• El Paso Sector's (sub-district) first headquarters, as well as the location of the first National Border Patrol Training School was Camp Chigas (see it's modern location here).  After Camp Chigas became unsuitable, a new Sector Headquarters was built and completed in 1956.  A September, 25, 1964 edition the El Paso Herald-Post shows the location of the new sector Border Patrol headquarters.  This document shows the research and modern location of the building (it's standing and in Mexico).
  
  • On September 25, 1964, designated as Chamizal Day, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Adolfo Lopez-Mateos met in the middle of the Stanton Street Bridge, greeting each other in the traditional Mexican abrazo, “the male hug and back slap,” before shaking hands as over 250,000 people from El Paso and Ciudad Juarez watched. The meeting had begun on the grounds of Bowie High School (currently Guillen Middle School). In order to provide security for the Presidents and the large crowd, 112 Patrol Inspectors from El Paso, Marfa, and Tucson Sectors assisted the U.S. Secret Service, Texas Department of Public Safety, and El Paso Police Department in providing crowd control and area security.
    
    • ​​​From - HONOR FIRST:  The Story of the United States Border Patrol - Volume II by Joseph Banco

2001

• On September 26, 2001, the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry finalized the design of the "Badge, Identification, Tactical Unit (BORTAC), U.S. Border Patrol".

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Newton-Azrak Award Action Anniversaries

​Follow this link to see examples of USBP employees Upholding Honor First.

• An organization’s values are codified in its awards system. Recognizing the achievements, service and heroism of employees is important.  It is critical for those in positions of leadership to value the workforce.  Awards are a fundamental manner for leaders to demonstrate appreciation to the workforce for upholding the organizational values. – U.S. Border Patrol Honorary Awards

​There are no Newton-Azrak Award action anniversaries for the week.  However, there are many actions for which the date is unknown.  I will highlight some of those below.  In 1987, two people were presented Newton-Azrak Awards and their dates of action are not known. 
 
Lee R. Prejean
Criminal Investigator
Seattle, Washington
Criminal Investigator Lee R. Prejean conducted undercover activities as part of Operation Castoron, which commenced as a marriage fraud investigation and grew into a visa fraud, smuggling, gunrunning, narcotics and terrorist investigation. Through his devoted and selfless efforts, he was able to infiltrate the large-scale conspiracy organization posing as a corrupt immigration officer. During the period of his undercover activities, he held hundreds of consensually monitored conversations, both telephonic and in person, with criminal elements involved in the investigation. He received pay-offs for alleged misconduct on his part, and was able to elicit the support and fidelity of the criminal principals in the case to such an extent that much valuable information was supplied to him willingly by these individuals which, in effect, led to the successful conclusion of this investigation. His involvement was so thorough that he placed a separate telephone and answering machine in his home in order that he might be available to the principals at any time.
 
Mr. Prejean demonstrated unusual courage and competence while in the line of duty and under very trying circumstances.



George E. Evancheck - award statuette, notification letter
Border Patrol Agent 
Del Rio, Texas
No description available.

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USBP Fallen

As of May 16, 2022, the U.S. Border Patrol has suffered 152* fallen.
Titles:

• 3 Mounted Watchmen fell before 1924 and are carried as Border Patrol fallen
• 48 Border Patrol Inspectors fell between 1924 and 1970
• 100 Border Patrol Agents have fallen since 1970
• 1 Enforcement Analysis Specialist

The names that appear below hold a place of honor. They have made the ultimate sacrifice in an effort to fulfill the oath each officer took to protect and defend the United States of America.

The facts regarding each officer are presented without major editing of the "language of the day" found in the reports detailing the circumstances of each event. This is done to provide the reader an association with historical timeframes.

Employees who died in the line of duty due to being exposed to deadly illnesses will not have the cause of death listed.

*With the exception of two of the fallen immediately below, all names are listed (or in the process of being included) on the official Honor Roll of U.S. Border Patrol Fallen and inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.  The U.S. Border Patrol should fix these discrepancies. HonorFirst.com honors both of the fallen.

• Joe R. White - He is recognized as officially fallen by the U.S. Border Patrol but his name is not inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial.
• John Charles Gigax - He is not recognized as officially fallen by Customs and Border Protection or the U.S. Border Patrol. He is remembered by all except his own agency with his name is inscribed on the:
  • National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial (see this link),
  • Officer Down memorial Page (see this link), and
  • Texas Peace Officer's Memorial (see this link).

2021

​David B. Ramirez
Entered on Duty:           April 6, 2003
Title:                              Border Patrol Agent-Intelligence
End of Watch:               September 26, 2021

Details:
Agent Ramirez entered on duty on April 6, 2003, as part of the 546th Session of the Border Patrol Academy. At the time of his passing, he was assigned to the Sector Intelligence Unit/Joint California Forensics Center in San Diego, California. The circumstances of his passing were reviewed by an executive panel and the CBP Commissioner who determined that this death occurred in the line of duty.  He is survived by his wife Rosemary; children: David, Cristian, and Castiel; and father: Modesto.

Cremated
 
 
Alfredo M. Ibarra
Entered on Duty:           February 9, 2011
Title:                              Border Patrol Agent
End of Watch:               September 27, 2021

Details:
Agent Ibarra entered on duty on February 9, 2011, as part of the 963th Session of the Border Patrol Academy. At the time of his passing, he was assigned to the Blythe Station, Yuma Sector, Arizona. The circumstances of his passing were reviewed by an executive panel and the CBP Commissioner who determined that this death occurred in the line of duty.  He is survived by his wife Monica; children: Alfredo, Aydan, and Adrian; and mother: Evangelina.

Cremated