In its ongoing quest to secure the southern border, US Border Patrol Agents have returned to its roots and have begun using horses to assist it agents.

From Reuters:

When the Border Patrol was founded in 1924, recruits on the southwest border had to provide their own horses, tack and guns, although they were given bullets, animal feed and $25 a week.

They were sent out on the back trails from California to south Texas to tackle “tequileros” — smugglers hauling barrels and goatskins filled with liquor north from Mexico on horses, mules and burros during the period of Prohibition.

Modern-day mounted agents secure many of the same out-of-the-way trails as their predecessors, although now they track groups of illegal immigrants and hardy drug traffickers, some armed with knives, pistols and assault rifles.

Like their forebears, present-day Border Patrol agents continue to use sturdy quarter horses — so called as they are the fastest breed over a quarter mile, and are also renowned for their strength and stamina.

Most of the stocky, muscular animals are bought from horse dealers or at auctions, although a number are seized from Mexican smugglers caught riding over the border with loads of marijuana crammed into burlap sacks.

“Some of the smugglers have a good eye for a horse,” Schad told Reuters as she rode out over a sandy cattle trail in the Altar Valley south of Tucson.

“They are raised in the mountains and they are good ranch horses … and they are some of the best that we have.”

870,000 people were arrested in 2007 for attempting to cross the border into the United States.

The Human Smuggling market from Mexico into the United States is believed to be a $7.5 billion market.