When it comes to what to wear to work, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is unique. In addition to civilian employees with personal options in clothing choices, CBP has 3 distinct uniformed services within our agency today—Air and Marine Operations, Office of Field Operations, and U.S. Border Patrol—each with its own sets of official clothes and accessories that distinguish them and their law enforcement responsibilities.
Considering that our legacy agencies also had uniformed components (including Customs, Agriculture, Immigration, and the Border Patrol), these add up to a lot of uniform types to save examples of in our historical collections. Because of the complexity and extent of our past and present uniforms, CBP preserves only a relatively small number of examples within our artifact holdings. Many of these are generic, but when we can find them, it is much more interesting and meaningful to preserve items associated with specific people.
Tyesha Bordeaux accepted a job with the U.S. Customs Service in 2002. Her career with Customs and CBP has led her to both the Office of Field Operations and the Office of International Affairs, and taken her from Atlanta, to Baltimore, to Hong Kong and DC, before landing her in Canada in 2019 to become Area Port Director, Toronto Preclearance.
Ms. Bordeaux acquired these boots in 2010 to wear when performing collateral duties with the CBP Honor Guard. She wore them as an Honor Guard member while serving as the Desk Officer for the Laredo, Atlanta and New Orleans Field Offices within the Office of Field Operations, Field Liaison Division.