{"id":21655,"date":"2019-06-28T15:01:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T19:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21655"},"modified":"2019-06-28T15:01:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T19:01:36","slug":"migrants-in-distress-who-you-gonna-call-cbp-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/06\/28\/migrants-in-distress-who-you-gonna-call-cbp-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Migrants in Distress, Who You Gonna Call? CBP!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of late, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been getting a lot of negative attention in the media. The vast majority of it is completely unjustified. But whenever immigration tragedies happen \u2013 like the recent death of a mother and three children, in the desert near McAllen, Texas \u2013 the mainstream media delights in portraying CBP officers as heartless enforcers<\/a>, indifferent<\/a> to the plight of immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Most people don\u2019t know it but the Border Patrol maintains an elite special unit<\/a> dedicated entirely to finding and rescuing people in distress \u2013 including lost or injured migrants. It\u2019s known as BORSTAR<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s an acronym for Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Membership in BORSTAR is open only\nto experienced Border Patrol Agents who undergo a rigorous selection course\nsimilar to those required for joining elite military units. Team members earn\nadvanced emergency medicine qualifications and receive specialized training in\nhigh and low angle mountain rescue, water rescue, helicopter medical evacuation\nand other, related skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But BORSTAR is only one aspect of CBP\u2019s rescue capability<\/a>. The agency maintains a network of rescue beacons<\/a> along the southern border<\/a> that are regularly monitored<\/a> by federal law enforcement officers. The CBP Air and Marine Operations Division<\/a> regularly conducts airborne and waterborne patrols to locate stranded migrants. And in 2017 the Border Patrol launched a public information campaign called the \u201cBorder Safety Initiative<\/a>,\u201d which is aimed at, \u201cwarning migrants of the dangers of entering the country illegally.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All CBP enforcement personnel receive first aid instruction as part of their basic training curriculum. And, according to the latest figures available, CBP personnel rescued 4,000 people in FY 2016 alone. And those figures don\u2019t even include the situations where off-duty CBP officers render assistance when they come upon random crises, as happened when CBP Officer Daina Lambert<\/a> aided the victims of roadway accident in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States has massive borders. And people seeking a better life in America will always be tempted to take unreasonable risks in order to cross our frontiers. However, the mainstream media, open-borders politicians and radical groups like the American Civil Liberties Union should stop blaming CBP<\/a> for immigration tragedies. The truth is that there are thousands of migrants who are alive today only because dedicated men and women working for CBP put their own lives at risk to rescue them when they ran into trouble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dangers inherent in attempts to\nenter the U.S. unlawfully are an incident of geography. They have nothing to do\nwith bad immigration policies or malevolent immigration enforcement personnel.\nBut, sadly, even the unsung heroes of CBP can\u2019t save everyone who makes a\ntragic misstep in the unforgiving borderlands \u2013 migrants attempting to jump the\nborder are many, and CBP rescuers are comparatively few. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of late, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been getting a lot of negative attention in the media. The vast majority of it is completely unjustified. But whenever immigration tragedies happen \u2013 like the recent death of a mother and three children, in the desert near McAllen, Texas \u2013 the mainstream media delights in<\/p>\n

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