United States Border Patrol
U.S. federal law enforcement agency
The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a federal law enforcement agency under United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and is responsible for securing the borders of the United States. According to its website as of 2022, its mission is to "Protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity."
With 19,648 agents in 2019, the Border Patrol is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. For fiscal year 2017, Congress enacted a budget of $3,805,253,000 for the Border Patrol.
History
Throughout most of the nineteenth century, United States' borders were open and unrestricted; there was no systematic control or even recordkeeping of immigrants. The first legislation restricting immigration, after the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807, was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
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. 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.
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.
The public source identifies “United States Border Patrol” as u.S. federal law enforcement agency. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around United, States and Border.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “United States Border Patrol”, the useful work is to connect “u.S. federal law enforcement agency” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q187954. VIAF identifies the subject as 133686893. The Library of Congress control number is n80046071. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022, 2019, 2017 and 1807.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “United States Border Patrol” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.