The U.S. Border Patrol is the second largest policing institution in the country. The force received 3.6 billion dollars in 2014 to patrol U.S. borders. Although established in 1924 by the National Origins Act to enforce federal immigration laws, the U.S. Border Patrol remained largely governed by local authorities throughout the 1920s and 30s. The Texas Rangers, a volunteer militia in Texas that eventually became the state police force, are an example of this. According to Kelly Lytle Hernández, a historian of the U.S. Border Patrol, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century the Texas Rangers played an integral role in land acquisition for white ranchers in the southwest through “raw physical violence.” The Texas Rangers policing practices shaped the formation of US Border Patrol. Border policing continued to be institutionalized throughout the twentieth century in several departments such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Across the country, ICE maintains 24 Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Offices in 18 states, many which are not located in proximity to the border region.According to their website “ICE now has more than 20,000 employees in more than 400 offices in the United States and 48 foreign countries.”