Blaine Sector
Blaine Sector includes the westernmost 19 of Washington’s 39 counties, as well as the entire states of Oregon and Alaska. During Prohibition, Border Patrol agents based here patrolled for rum running, opium smuggling during Prohibition to illegal European immigrants.
Buffalo Sector
Buffalo Sector is comprised of 29 counties, which include all of the Western parts of New York State, portions of Central and Northern New York State, and parts of Pennsylvania. The Buffalo Sector has recently installed a Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS), which places cameras at strategic locations along the US/Canada border. These cameras allow the Sector Enforcement Specialists to detect illegal border entries and communicate those intrusions to Border Patrol Agents in the field.
Del Rio Sector
Del Rio Sector’s area of responsibility covers 59,541 square miles of Texas, and reaches 300 miles into Texas from the U.S.-Mexico border. The 41 counties in the Sector area consist primarily of farms and ranches, and are sparsely populated. This makes the Sector area along the border a major staging area for narcotic and alien smuggling operations. The Sector has been an integral part of the Southwest Border Strategy Initiative designed to shut down the traditional corridors that illegal entrants use along the nation's Southwest border.
Detroit Sector
The Detroit Sector is responsible for 863 miles of international water boundary with Canada and encompasses the State of Michigan and portions of the States of Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Its 863 mile international border consists entirely of water, where climate changes can be extreme and winters harsh. In many areas, waterways separating the United States and Canada are narrow and can freeze in the winter allowing people to traverse both on foot and by vehicle. During prohibition, the size of the sector grew quickly. By the time prohibition was repealed, Detroit Sector had the highest number of officers in the nation.
El Centro Sector
El Centro’s area of operation has some of the most rugged, remote, and diverse terrain along the southwest border, posing many dangers for agents and potential border crossers. El Centro Sector area of responsibility spans 71 linear miles along the International Boundary with Mexico from the Jacumba Mountains in the west to the Imperial Sand Dues in the east. In direct support of the National Strategy, the mission of El Centro Sector is working to protect the external boundaries of the United States and to prevent, detect, apprehend, and interdict terrorists, illegal aliens, smugglers, contraband, and violators of other laws.
El Paso Sector
The El Paso Sector covers the entire state of New Mexico and the two western most counties in Texas, Hudspeth and El Paso. As early as 1904, a small group of mounted Patrol Inspectors, later known as mounted guards, had operational headquarters at El Paso, Texas. When the Border Patrol was officially created, El Paso Border Patrol Station was assigned 25 Patrol Inspectors. As Border Patrolmen attempted to apprehend liquor smugglers, gunfights soon began to break out. Newspaper files indicate that not one 24-hour period passed in the month of February 1927 without a report of gun fighting along the border. The newly established Border Patrol built a reputation of winning most of the gun battles.
Grand Forks Sector
Grand Forks Sector encompasses areas in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. The area that currently makes up Grand Forks Sector was originally three separate Border Patrol Sectors. These three Border Patrol Sector Headquarters were established at Duluth, MN, International Falls, MN, and Portal, ND. Grand Forks Sector was officially established in 1939.
Havre Sector
The Havre Sector is responsible for 452 miles of border area between Montana and Canada, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, as well as, part of Idaho. During Prohibition, illegal aliens were drawn to work in Montana’s sugar beet fields. In the summer of 1924, approximately 50 illegal aliens per month were detained. Today, the Havre Sector U.S. Border Patrol continues its efforts to control Montana’s borders by maintaining and expanding a strong enforcement posture, including sufficient flexibility to address dynamic enforcement challenges, which is critical to bringing operational control to our Nation’s borders.
Houlton Sector
Houlton Sector covers the entire State of Maine. During the Prohibition era, Houlton Sector Patrol Inspectors enforced Immigration laws throughout the Maine, as well as apprehended illegal liquor smugglers. Inspectors also routinely checked logging camps in the northwest part of the state to guard against illegal loggers from Canada. During World War II, agents assisted in the capture of escaped prisoners from the detention camp established in Houlton, Maine.
Laredo Sector
The Laredo Sector encompasses 116 counties and covers 101,439 square miles of southwest and northeast Texas. With a workforce of over 1,400 employees, the Laredo Sector is a viable economic factor providing over $80 million in salaries on an annual basis for the Sector's region. Freight train checks have been one of the most productive operations for alien apprehensions in the sector. It is also the most dangerous activity. Commercial transportation checks have resulted in many drug seizures, as well as alien and smuggler apprehensions.
Marfa Sector
The Marfa Sector covers over 135,000 square miles encompassing over 118 counties in Texas and Oklahoma. Marfa Sector is responsible for the largest geographical area of any sector along the Southwest border. The Sector’s border boundary is almost one-quarter of the country’s Southwest Border.
Miami Sector
Miami Sector consists of approximately 187,000 square miles and has 1,203 miles of coastal border (Florida only) along the Atlantic and Gulf shores of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
U.S. Border Patrol Agents were the original Air Marshals. In August of 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced to the Nation that U.S. Border Patrol Agents would be deployed to prevent hijackings by Cuban dissidents; 12 hours later, Border Patrol Agents were guarding their first flight. The operation was coordinated by the Miami Sector for flights originating throughout the nation. At its peak, 50 Border Patrol Agents were flying on 92 flights a day, guarding 1,310 flights in total, and logging 1,724,396 air miles.
Spokane Sector
The Spokane Sector covers eastern Washington and Idaho, and western Montana up to the Continental Divide. The early enforcement problems were in some instances similar to those of today, with the units searching for aliens who attempted illegal entry by trail, railroad, and road. More trains crossed the border in the early days, and these were checked frequently for aliens attempting to find work inland in the United States. Liquor smuggling operators made use of trails and little used roads across the border.
Swanton Sector
The Swanton Sector area of responsibility encompasses some 24,000 square miles and includes the State of Vermont; Clinton, Essex, Franklin, St. Lawrence and Herkimer counties of New York; and Coos, Grafton and Carroll counties of New Hampshire. The Sector is adjacent to the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The Swanton Sector is the first international land boundary east of the Great Lakes.
New Orleans Sector
The New Orleans Sector has jurisdiction over a seven-state area, encompassing 592 counties and parishes and approximately 362,310 square miles, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and a portion of the Florida panhandle. From 1927 to 1934 operations were primarily concerned with the apprehension of alien crewman deserters and aliens being smuggled into the United States by boat. During WWII a large force of Border Patrol Agents was assigned to the Gulf Coast area to check persons departing the beach areas bound for points in the interior, and prevent the entry of enemy agents into the United States.
Ramey Sector
Ramey Sector was established in 1987 and is the newest of the twenty Sectors. Encompassing the U.S. territorial islands of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, it is the only Border Patrol Sector located outside the continental United States. Illegal aliens from all parts of the world use Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as a stepping stone to the U.S. mainland.
Rio Grande Valley Sector
The Rio Grande Valley Sector covers 17,000 square miles of Southeast Texas. In fiscal year 2007 the Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol had a 34% decrease in overall apprehensions. The Sector attributes this decrease to a number of factors that include; assistance provided through Operation Jump Start and the Texas National Guard, the recent acquisition of 480 additional Border Patrol Agents, additional technology and infrastructure, and a sustained detention capability for arrested persons.
San Diego Sector
The San Diego Sector consists of more than 7,000 square miles and 66 linear miles of international boundary with Mexico. Although the smallest Border Patrol sector geographically, more than 40% of national apprehensions had taken place here. San Diego sector gained national attention in 1994 with the inception of Operation Gatekeeper, one of the most effective border enforcement strategies to date. Operation Gatekeeper was successful in deterring and shifting illegal alien traffic, disrupting smuggling operations, and prosecuting record numbers of illegal crossers and smugglers.
Tucson Sector
Tucson Sector covers most of the State of Arizona from the New Mexico State line to the Yuma County line. This area covers a total of 262 border miles and is the busiest Sector in the country in both illegal alien apprehensions and marijuana seizures. In 2007 they arrested 378,000 illegal immigrants in 2007; 41,000 of those had criminal histories.
Yuma Sector
The sector patrols 118 miles of border with Mexico, between the Yuma-Pima County line in Arizona and the Imperial Sand Dunes in California. Yuma Sector Border Patrol Agents cover a diverse range of terrain- vast open deserts, rocky mountain ranges, large drifting sand dunes and the ever changing Colorado River. The Yuma Sector is one of the fastest growing Border Patrol Sectors in the country having doubled in size since 2004.