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Border Patrol and the Secure Border Initiative
It would be expected that there would be a drastic increase in the number of border patrol agents following 9/11. However, the mission and goals changed, not the number of agents. The rate of growth for border agents was actually higher in the years prior to 9/11 than the years following. One reason behind this was that there was a focus on other aspects of border patrol, like the equipment used for surveillance. In the four years proceeding 9/11, full-time Border Patrol agents increased from 6,817 in 1997 to 9,651 in 2001, which is a 42 percent increase.
By comparison, in the four years following the attacks, they increased from 9,902 in 2002 to 11,106 in 2005, an increase of only 15 percent. Although there may have been a focus on making the border more effectively patrolled, the budget drastically increased the years following 9/11 to strengthen security. The percent of border agents along the Mexican border compared to the Canadian border is stark. In 2001, for example, 93.9 percent of the agents were located along the border with Mexico. In 2005, 88.8 percent were assigned to this border. In 2001, 3.4 percent of the agents were along the border with Canada, which rose to 8.8 percentin 2005......[Citing TRAC research].
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