Protecting Our Frontlines

Securing our borders means mitigating— not eliminating—risk. Here's why.

- VINCENT VARGAS

"Good fences make good neighbors," wrote poet Robert Frost. What is the purpose of a country's border, and its border control agents? To protect the nation from the entry of terrorists or smugglers, of course, but also to help facilitate the smooth arrival of legal immigrants and asylum seekers. What to do about the U.S.-Mexico border and how to stop drug and human trafficking and illegal immigrants from crossing it is constantly in the news-from presidential hopefuls on the campaign trail to elected leaders' debates about funding and reform.

In September, a federal judge ruled that the state of Texas must remove a 1000-foot-long wall of floating buoys in the Rio Grande, which Governor Greg Abbott is currently appealing. New York State Governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, said the border is "too open" and that Congress should "limit" the number allowed to cross in the wake of the more than 100,000 migrants who have sought asylum in New York City this year.

But at the center of whatever policies and laws are in effect, are U.S. Border Patrol agents, who are tasked with protecting the country's border from threats. Vincent Vargas was one of those agents from 2009 to 2015. Formerly an Army Ranger who saw combat in Iran and Afghanistan, and now having just finished a five-season run as an actor on FX's hit show MAYANS M.C., Vargas gives an insider's view into the dangerous job of a border agent. In his new book, BORDERLINE: DEFENDING THE HOMEFRONT (St. Martin's), Vargas provides an inside look into what the job entails. This excerpt portrays one encounter that could have gone very wrong, and how he thinks about the policies necessary to balance humanitarian issues against the country's defense.

THERE ARE ALWAYS THREATS ON the border; everyone can be lethal, especially at the river's edge.