The cartel we don’t talk about
The United States today spends more money each year on border and immigration enforcement than the combined budgets of the FBI, ATF, DEA, Secret Service and U.S. Marshals—plus the entire NYPD annual budget. Altogether, the country has invested more than $100 billion in border and immigration control since 9/11.
It has paid for quite a force: Customs and Border Protection not only employs some 60,000 total personnel—everything from desert agents on horseback to insect inspectors at airports—but also operates a fleet of some 250 planes, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator drones the military sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, making CBP both the largest law enforcement air force in the world and equivalent roughly to the size of Brazil’s entire combat air force.
The Green Monster: How the Border Patrol became America’s most out-of-control law enforcement agency.
By Garrett M. Graff, Politico.
The Mex Files 
Remember this when you hear Republicans talking about “ending the deficit” and “balancing the budget.” And, my response when I hear this sort of talk is, NSA has something like 20,000 employees, not including contractors. Couldn’t they somehow get by with only 19,000 employees?