Kirkus Reviews QR Code
THE BORDER WARDENS by John Myers Myers

THE BORDER WARDENS

By

Pub Date: March 26th, 1971
Publisher: Prentice-Hall

The Border Patrol, for those who don't know, is the law enforcement arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Its job: to keep the pestilence of lesser breeds from our shores. In the early years of the century the ""wily coolie"" (or the ""Heathen Chinee"") was the menace. He was followed during Prohibition by the bandito whiskey smuggler. Today the ""invaders"" are Mexican wetbacks variously styled by Mr. Myers as ""buzzards,"" ""bloodsuckers,"" ""malignant tumors,"" and ""a horde of pariahs."" They are also ""pertinancious sneaks who have to be hunted down like chicken thieves""; this is the job of the Border Patrol and these John Wayne stalwarts perform it with gusto, enjoying the ""zest of the chase"" and bagging, these days, a ""daily catch"" of hundreds of destitute Mexicans in search of employment in the land of opportunity. The only damper on this exhilarating job is interference from the ""ovoid gentlemen"" in Washington -- Princeton and Yale eggheads who have the presumption to control purse-strings and review the Patrol's round-ups. They are nothing less than ""public saboteurs,"" ""perverse sentimentalists"" who apparently don't understand that ""if the wetback could be eliminated, so could America's crippling welfare program."" Fifty years of hard riding and fast shooting as the unsung heroes of the Border Patrol pursue their prey, ""so unassimilable and below the level of civilization that they could be looked at and not seen as human."" Which is exactly how Myers looks at them.