Horse Patrol: Agents learn a time-tested tradition to watch after the border

HIDALGO - The pair of U.S. Border Patrol agents guide their horses under the fiery midday sun.

One man spots more than a dozen people huddled beneath a grove of trees that sit just several yards before them. The two charge forward. Part of the gaggle breaks apart as the immigrants try to outrun the agents - a desperate run for escape while others remain beneath the trees.

As one agent chases the runners while still on horseback, his partner breaks off and confronts the others in the shade.

But as he approaches, the supposed coyote - clad in green Border Patrol fatigues - draws what appeared to be a shotgun and rolls off several fake gunshots at the mounted agent.

"What happened yesterday in Harlingen?" Laco Villarreal asked the horseback agents on Thursday as he watched the scene unfold.

The agents offer no response to Villarreal's question - just sober faces of understanding.

News of Harlingen police Officer Carlos Diaz's shooting haunted law enforcement officers everywhere.

"You have to think what to do, you know? The majority of the group stays here as Villarreal continues.

"Both of you guys would have been dropped dead."

The episode was part of a training exercise Villarreal led last week. The local horseman and tick rider leases his stable and horses near Hidalgo to the Border Patrol for their mounted agents to use in the area.

The history of mounted agents standing guard along the U.S. border dates back to the 1880s and expanded when the Border Patrol was founded in 1924.

Even with advances in technology used on patrol - such as the helicopters, boats and all-terrain vehicles that tear across barren landscapes in recruitment ads - mounted agents continue to be a useful tool.

Nowadays, only two pairs of mounted agents typically roam eight different coverage areas in the McAllen area, said Lorenzo Delgado, the agent who supervises the sector's horseback patrol efforts.

"It's a very useful tool - especially when it comes to apprehending people," Delgado said of the horses. "When there's more than a large group, basically you can control them better on a horse than you could on foot."

Unlike modern vehicles, horses don't need to travel on paths or roads, Delgado said. They can easily traverse through brush or crops with minimal environmental impact. And they are quieter - keeping a lower profile than vehicles, allowing agents to approach groups of immigrants while avoiding detection.

"They're 10 feet away and they don't see you," Delgado said. "When they start running back towards a wooded area ... the horse can just run them straight through and cut them off."

Despite that, horses have taken somewhat of a back burner to modern technology.

Because the Border Patrol contracts with local owners rather than constructing its own stables, there have been instances where no horses are available to agents while new terms are negotiated, said Daniel Doty, a Border Patrol spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley sector.

Government leaders in Washington, D.C. have cut back on funding for horses, as well.

"If we had our way, we would have horses all the time," Doty said.