Thane Gallagher, Patrolling the Border

Patrolling the Border with Thane Gallagher

Thane Gallagher is a law enforcer who has worked in various patrol assignments throughout his career, from tracking illegal immigrants on foot over rugged, mountainous terrain, narcotics and illegal immigrant interdiction on the nation’s highways, as well as checkpoint operations. Gallagher is also a certified EMT and Field Training Officer. As an FTO, Gallagher along with his partner, developed a more modern tactical approach and training model to teach newer agents how to conduct highway interdiction operations. For the last three years, Gallagher has been assigned as a Task Force Officer within a gang/narcotics unit for the San Diego Sheriff’s Office. As a Task Force Officer and in addition to the usual investigative caseload, Gallagher is typically consulted by other federal and local agencies for guidance and investigative support on a wide variety of immigration, identity theft, and document fraud issues.

Gallagher’s vast field experience has been put to good use as a labor representative, who served on his local chapter’s Executive Board (NBPC Local 1613), specializing in and addressing many of the unique officer safety issues that face Border Patrol Agents each and every day, as well as working hand in hand with PORAC counsel representing members after various critical incidents. Gallagher was one of the first labor representatives for his organization to address the Zylon deficiencies present in Second Chance ballistic body armor several years ago, many thousands of units of which had been issued to Border Patrol Agents at the time. Gallagher continues to serve as a senior field representative for his local, in addition to his assigned duties. Gallagher is also a member of the California Narcotics Officer’s Association, as well as the California Gang Investigator’s Association.

Gallagher served four years on active duty with the U.S. Coast Guard, while assigned to patrol various locales from the Bering Sea on one of the service’s largest high endurance cutters, to the Channel Islands off of Southern California on small patrol boats. Gallagher not only specialized in search and rescue operations, but he became a certified Maritime Law Enforcement Officer (Boarding Officer) early in his military career, which is where he first whet his appetite for enforcing the law. Gallagher participated in and/or led as the primary officer, hundreds of boardings throughout his Coast Guard career, making arrests for everything from boating under the influence, to narcotics smuggling on the high seas, to poaching and/or unauthorized fishing in protected waters, to felons in possession of firearms. Gallagher was a part of a Coast Guard security team working with the U.S. Secret Service, which maintained an at sea security perimeter just offshore from a Santa Barbara, Ca., beachfront home, that then President Elect Bill Clinton was visiting for a week long vacation.

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