FRONTIER PATROL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1942, Page 4

FRONTIER PATROL

ACTIVITIES ON U.S.A.-MEXICO BORDER. For 2,000 miles along its southern border, the United States touches Mexico, states “Life.” In peacetime such a fact would be a dry item in a geography book. Today, however, it is of vital importance. For in Mexico, despite the good intentions of the Camacho government, there are German, Italian and Japanese agents, plotting to sneak across the border. The chief agency entrusted with the job of keeping out these agents, as well as refugees from Europe and ordinary Mexican aliens, is the Border Patrol of the U.S. Immigration Service, now a part of the Department of Justice. Its 1,500 officers and men are tough, well trained, accustomed to shooting and getting shot. By day and night along the murky Rio Grande they keep up a ceaseless patrol, lying in wait for aliens, stopping suspicious cars, continuously watching from their windy observation towers. In the 17 years since the Patrol was founded in 1924 to guard the Mexican and Canadian borders and the Florida and Gulfcoasts, some 300.000 persons have been arrested, 6,000 automobiles and 40 airplanes seized. In making these seizures and arrests, 35 patrolmen have been killed. Because the most common method of crossing the border is by wading or swimming the Rio Grande, aliens are called “wets” or “wet feet.” If a wet escapes and gets across river, patrolmen must track him down as he takes off across country. Most dangerous characters to track down are the professional smugglers. For 25 cents to 5 dollars they will supply boats and tarpaulins to wets, and tell them how to get through the patrol. If the smuggler’s customers are important, however, like German and Japanese agents, he will raise his price to 200 dollars and go himself with the aliens across the border. If patrolmen come upon such a group, they will likely not capture them without shooting it out.