U.S. turns to horses to secure borders

They probably have a better chance at doing it then we do anyway.

U.S. Border Patrol agent Galen Huffman leans over the saddle to look at faint tracks in a cattle trail leading up from the Mexico border.

Huh?

He follows the tracks at a brisk trot through thick brush, up and down into rocky washes, then pauses as his horse twitches its ears and turns around nervously.

I seem to have wandered into a page of Lonesome Dove here.

Horses have been part of the Border Patrol since the agency was founded to secure the United States borders against liquor smugglers and unlawful immigrants in the 1920s, and now they are making a comeback.

With gas prices the way they are I'm not surprised.

Agents dressed in leather chaps and broad-brimmed hats are increasingly being used to regain control over the most rugged areas of the southwest frontier with Mexico and now on the northern border with Canada.

It's finally happened. America has managed to go back in time.

"Most of the traffic is being pushed into these mountainous areas which are harder to work. They are very remote," said Bobbi Schad, a horse patrol supervisor from Tucson. "With a horse you can get up in there."

And after the Mexicans crossing the border beat the ever-loving shit out of you, they have an easier time getting to a town with the horse. After all that running across the border, it's nice to get off their feet.