In an effort to establish communication with the United States Border Patrol about some of the agency's undesirable practices on private property, area rancher Gene Walker mailed this first letter to the U.S. Border Patrol on April 29, 2002. Though he sent the letter to the BP hierarchy from Laredo to Washington, D.C., the only response Mr. Walker received was from Chief Patrol Agent John W. Montoya. The text of Mr. Montoya's May 22, 2002 letter is also included here, as well as Mr. Walker's June 13, 2002 response to Agent Montoya. Mr. Walker has forwarded his and Agent Montoya's correspondence to Rep. Henry Bonilla, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Senator Phil Gramm. (The correspondence in its entirety is also posted at www.laredosnews.com)

GENE WALKER TO USBP
April 29, 2002

My name is Gene Walker, a rancher in Webb and Zapata counties.
I wish to harshly criticize the extremely unethical behavior of the federal government's Border Patrol employees.
There is the matter of their rudeness while they are on private land on taxpayer's time. They are intrusive and impolite and some have an attitude of "I'm better than you are." This evidences itself in their official comportment and what they do on private land while on official duty.
They take things that do not belong to them and they do so on government time. They hunt and pick up arrowheads, cow skulls, buck deer shed antlers, buck deer skulls and antlers -- all on private property and on government time. This kind of artifact hunting and collecting is taken to extremes -- many tax payer dollars are wasted. Some agents hunt these objects from helicopters!
For the most part, Border Patrol pilots do not take any precautions whatsoever around cattle. They fly too low, disregard us ranchers, and stampede our frightened cattle over fences and into neighboring ranches.
Unidentified, un-marked vehicles out in our pastures should never be allowed. Using government vehicles to play on our land causes excessive wear to the vehicle, not to mention the damage it does to the land. Please see the attached photographs of permanent ruts made in our roads by agents using 4-wheel drive in the mud and by agents cutting "donuts" on our pastures with their vehicles. We know better than to rut our roads in wet weather and we take great care not to.
There are agents afoot and in the middle of nowhere on our ranch. They are elusive, hiding, and refusing to identify themselves or what they are doing in such an unlikely place to be tracking the movement of illegal immigrants.
The harassment of our deer hunters is unacceptable. Either this must stop or the government must reimburse ranchers for income loss. It is totally unacceptable for a Border Patrol agent to pop up anywhere in prime hunting time, intimidate the hunters, and scare off the game. This goes on and more so during the main deer season, giving rise to the question, "Why so much interest by agents in the intense surveillance of our land during deer season?" Perhaps they are themselves hunting or spotting a good deer.
I include fence cutting by Border Patrol agents on their long list of unpardonable acts on private property. In most instances, the cutting of a ranch fence is considered a felony act.
These attitudes and actions will sooner or later lead to a confrontation between U.S. Border Patrol agents and ranchers, landowners, and hunters.
I would not offer these criticisms without also offering some suggestions to remedy a situation that has such potential for more negatives for all parties.
Go back 15 or 20 years to the standards that were required to be a Border Patrol Agent. Moral standards and common courtesy should be integral to the comportment of every agent.
Leave deer hunters alone. Border Patrol agents could do their surveillance from 10 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m., during the hours in which the hunters have returned to camp and are not in the pastures.
Under no circumstances allow vehicles during wet weather to cut up our turf grass.
Leave arrowheads and artifacts on the ground. This is theft of antiquities.
Border Patrol agents should have the common courtesy to say hello and tell the rancher what their business is on the rancher's private property. This is still the United States of America.
Have helicopters fly higher and away from cattle so they do not bolt and take out fences.
The loss of hunting revenues due to Border Patrol's actions should allow us to be compensated accordingly.
Cutting fences to get through to another pasture should never be allowed. Agents should be taught in training that this is an unpardonable action, one that in other circumstances would be considered a felony act.
Border Patrol agents should also be taught to leave ranch and pasture gates as they found them -- open or closed.
They should also be taught how to close padlocks to keep from locking out the landowner from his own property, or themselves from the property they have just visited.
I'd like to note that all things said here are not hearsay. They have happened to me personally.

Sincerely,
Gene Walker