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 News from Around the Americas | July 2007 
US Border Patrol Boosts Graduation Rate as National Guard Begins Leaving Mexican Border
 Associated Press
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| | US Border Patrol Agent Brent Smith works his Belgian Malinois dog, Beau, during a drug detection training session in the mountains north of Colville, Washington. A recent provincial court ruling has poked a potentially massive hole in Canada's border security, by forcing guards to obtain warrants to search vehicles at checkpoints, officials said this week. (AFP/Jeff T. Green) |
The U.S. Border Patrol graduated a second class of recruits within a week for the first time Thursday, days after National Guard troops began leaving the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico, a border state, produced 39 graduates Monday and 36 more Thursday, part of a plan to add 6,000 agents by the end of the year for a total of about 18,000. About 14,000 agents are on the border now.
The new graduates will be sent to five sectors — San Diego; El Paso and Laredo in Texas; and Tucson and Yuma in Arizona.
About 6,000 Guard members have been on the border since last May when they were deployed by President George W. Bush to back up the Border Patrol until more agents could be hired to counter the influx of illegal aliens from Mexico.
The planned troop reductions began July 15. Officials want to cut their numbers in half by Sept. 1.
Bush called on the Guard for the border duty during last year's immigration debate in Congress. The deployments were seen by some as an election year move to show Republicans in Congress that Bush was committed to stemming illegal immigration.
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