The fairly comprehensive and aforementioned GAO report entitled BORDER PATROL assigns mixed success to border checkpoints. Positive results include the apprehension of nearly 17,000 people in the country illegally at interior checkpoints in 2008. The report further states that, "More than 705,000 total Border Patrol apprehensions [occurred] along the southwest border in fiscal year 2008." The Border Patrol also "encountered 530 aliens from special interest countries, which are countries the Department of State has determined to represent a potential terrorist threat to the United States." There were also over 3,500 drug seizures at all southwest border checkpoints combined in 2008.
