For more than a century, the military limited its actions to fighting the military forces of other countries. But in 1982, the Posse Comitatus Act was amended so that the president could use military forces in a limited fashion to assist civilian law enforcement agencies. In 1986, President Reagan signed a National Security Decision Directive that proclaimed drug trafficking a threat to national security, and directed the Department of Defense to participate in the War on Drugs. Many in the military questioned the wisdom of taking on this responsibility. History is replete with countries that allowed that to happen.
Disaster is the result.
But responding to those calls . . . The Customs Service granted all Border Patrol agents and some 600 state and local civilian law enforcement officials the authority to enforce laws regarding contraband. This enabled these agencies to conduct warrantless border searches, as if they were at the border. The Deconstitutionalized Zone was created. People who live in the Zone, which extends from the border to the Border Patrol's secondary checkpoints approximately 150 miles from the border, live by a different set of rules.