2019 Champions Edition 2019 Champions Edition | Page 269

www.AmericanSecurityToday.com
2019 CHAMPIONS EDITION - 39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY5N5dnPu7o&feature=emb_logo
( Hear from John Welter, a Border Patrol agent in the San Diego sector, as he explains how a lit-
tle-known team called the Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit, or BORSTAR, has largely
gone under the radar. Courtesy of The Daily Signal. Posted on Oct 22, 2019.)
ters to find people in trouble, and
team includes search and rescue
dogs that work off leash to track the
scent of missing people, an integral
element when dense brush can hide
a person just yards away.
cording to Border Patrol Special Op-
erations Group Deputy Chief Patrol
Agent Jesse Munoz.
In fiscal 2017, BORSTAR rescued
1,028 people however, 2018 and
2019 has seen a dramatic increase.
The specialty units are supported by
agents in the field in all-terrain ve- And those rescues do not include
people found in tractor-trailers, car
hicles and on horseback.
trunks, or other vehicles that non-
About 90 percent of the people the BORSTAR agents find people in as
BORSTAR unit rescues today "have they try to smuggle themselves
crossed the border illegally," ac- into the country.
265