INS was basically an entire different agency with an entirely different directive. That was also a time when our immigration system was bifricated. So there were, in fact, several agencies, who all had a specialized directive. DHS changed all of that. Not to mention the budget increases.

I grew up 200 feet from a HUGE Border Patrol station in southern California, and about half a mile from the Mexican border. Just because they weren’t coming into the city centers and making big show about it doesn’t mean that they were terrorizing people all over border regions for a loooong time. Murder, rape, racketeering, etc have all been extremely common, and they pretty frequently destroy water and food stashes that good samaritans have left for folks, which has led to uncountable deaths.

Source it? No. I’m not going to show you the last 20 years of federal legislation that removes your freedoms systematically. My point was that we are not in a better place now than we were then, and the place where we are now has everything to do with where we were then