Book Review: Nobody Is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States

Post by Andriani Fili, Wellcome Trust Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. Her postdoctoral research explores experiences of medical care across and beyond immigration detention centres and through time, tracing connections between zones of quarantine and confinement for those deemed undesirable in Greece. Andriani is also an Associate Director of Border Criminologies, focusing on immigration detention research.

Review of Nobody Is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States by Reece Jones (Counterpoint Press, 2022).

There is growing research around the world about the overwhelmingly violent police cultures, the cultural acceptance for rough, aggressive, and sometimes arbitrary tactics in ‘high-crime’ neighbourhoods, but also about the, often, racist myths propelling these tactics. Reece Jones’ book about the US Border Patrol, ‘Nobody is Protected’, is a welcome addition to academic efforts trying to understand how police forces grow to become dangerous, enjoying impunity for law transgressions that no other public official would be allowed in their workplace.

There are three parts to this book. The first provides a vivid history of the Border Patrol and takes us back to 1925, when congressional authorisation allowed the nascent agents to stop vehicles without a warrant for immigration inspections within the border zone. The rationale behind the new force, with a tiny budget and an unclear mission, was that they enforced the national origin quotas that were passed the previous year, by which only a certain amount of people was allowed in the US. According to Jones, entrusting people who were hired from frontier law enforcement or from the Texas Rangers, with a reputation for extreme violence, with the protection of these racist entry rules, brought an ‘anything goes’ ethos to the enforcement of immigration laws at the borders. This, then, set a violent background to early practices of border control. Perhaps, more importantly during that period, regulations established that Border Patrol agents could perform their duties within 100 miles from any US external boundary or coastline, thus, covering a vast area and affecting two thirds of the US population today. 

For almost 50 years Border Patrol agents were untamed and operating deep inside the country, it was not until the 1970s that their questionable practices received more attention, specifically in relation to the 4th Amendment, which protects Americans from random and arbitrary stops and searches. This brings the readers to the second part of the book, which tells the compelling story of Supreme Court cases that aimed to bring justice to racial discrimination at the borders, and even in places far removed from the borders. Jones brings forward the oral arguments of the two public defenders who undertook the four key cases presented, but also the behind the scenes of the judgments, since the records are now public. In doing so, Jones eloquently reviews the influence of the judicial branch, but perhaps it would be good to see more of how the judicial, as well as the executive and legislative divisions, all work together in this regard. The Supreme Court decisions set the parameters that guide the force today; that is, wide discretion to police for immigration violations inside the United States. According to this legal precedent, the Border Patrol can stop any vehicle or pedestrian within the 100-mile zone without a warrant, can set up permanent checkpoints in this area, and can legally use racial profiling as a good enough reason for stopping the vehicles; powers that no other police force in the country has.

While back in the 1970s there were only 1,500 Border Patrol agents, the force now has over 20,000 agents with limitless authority and vast impunity for the violation of constitutional rights and no recourse for citizens who want to sue agents for these violations. Yet, despite this massive expansion, as Jones states, apprehensions are quite small. The third part of the book addresses the recent expansion of their role, without any basis, highlighting the spillover of their political power. There are now 113 checkpoints at which every single vehicle can be stopped without any reason to check the immigration status of those on board. Their use of force is also unprecedented. Border Patrol agents cannot be sued for shooting at or killing people on the Mexican side of the border and further, they have participated in raids of humanitarian organisations, and have ignored hundreds of calls about those in need of medical assistance in the desert. Disturbingly, the force has been employed to police protests after the killing of George Floyd, to monitor public spaces, and in other wide-ranging circumstances that have nothing to do with their mission of immigration control. This raises questions about the future of the Border Patrol and their unceasing power over large swaths of the country that could potentially bring the establishment of a national police force. 

Overall, Jones’ book is particularly timely and accessible. The history of the institution and the analysis of Supreme court cases that have allowed the Border Patrol to become the most dangerous police force in the United States will be highly pertinent to researchers on migration, borders, the police, and the historical evolution of state institutions. Contrary to the book’s conclusion that tries to imagine a more humane Border Patrol, I believe a more radical future should be put in place. In the wake of mass protests against lawless practices, the last decade has featured a robust debate, prominent in US literature, about defunding, abolishing, and reimagining the police and policing, more generally. While ‘Nobody is Protected’ offers little solace that there will be accountability for the illegal activities of the Border Patrol or that racialised policing will cease soon, the research that this book covers could and should be used by academics, lawyers, activists, and policy-makers alike as evidence for the fatal flaws of the institution and bring forward a call to put an end to the dramatic expansion of the role of border patrol officers. After all, as the title of the book suggests, it is not just immigrants that could be affected by arbitrary and violent policing, but any US citizen, including the President. For, nobody is protected from the US Border Patrol.

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