What’s Really Happening Along the US/Mexico Border?

Although the issue has declined in popularity among the major news organizations recently, the proximity of the border between the United States and Mexico to my home keeps border security high on my list of concerns. I regularly travel to various desert locations where “activity” is high, and feel that I have a basic understanding of the real situation, rather than what is presented through various media outlets.

Law Enforcement Challenges

The most important factor to understand is scale. Even in one state – such as Arizona – there’s a massive area to cover. Not only must local and federal law enforcement watch the border itself, trafficking activities regularly extend almost 100 miles north, meaning that it’s practically impossible to lock down anything more than a token area.

Certain areas are known to have a high level of activity, and are thus selected for heavy monitoring by law enforcement agencies. However, because of the size of even one “small” area, Border Patrol agents can do little more than stay in their vehicles and either watch fences, roads, and trails, or drive along said fences, roads, or trails, while smugglers and illegal immigrants are free to roam the desert. Agents do occasionally use ATVs to travel deeper into the desert, but this is not exactly a frequent occurrence.

As I was told by one agent, so many calls are received that the Border Patrol simply cannot respond to them all. This is partly due to efforts by smugglers to overwhelm law enforcement agencies with false calls for assistance. These are immediately responded to, for every report of a group of people stranded in the desert without water has the potential to result in multiple fatalities within hours if ignored.

Air assets are valuable, but scarce – one sheriff’s deputy told me about chasing two drug smugglers across the desert for almost an hour before a county helicopter was able to respond. By that time, he’d already apprehended both smugglers, who were armed with what he described as crude, homemade firearms, and shot at him during the chase.

Like their ground-based counterparts, CBP (Customs and Border Protection) fixed and rotary wing pilots sometimes spend their entire shifts “chasing ghosts,” or calls for assistance that lead them to far corners of their sector, only to find that no one is in need of assistance. I consider their presence to be rare, for in months of regularly visiting areas with trafficking activity – and sporadically in the years prior – I’ve never actually seen a CBP helicopter overhead. I have encountered them when I, too, am flying, but only in passing. They’re out there, but not in great numbers.

The majority of people encountered by law enforcement in these areas are unarmed, but the presence of heavily armed smugglers is a constant threat. While discussing various dangers with one agent, I was advised that if I stayed in the area long enough, I would encounter “multiple guys with AK-47s.” Coincidentally, early the next morning, I heard fully automatic gunfire that I tentatively identified as being from a Kalashnikov, though I never saw its source or its target, and believed it to be at least 500 yards away – given my location at the time, this may have been south of the border.

Still, most of the law enforcement officers that I’ve encountered in the desert travel alone. I wouldn’t characterize any of them as being complacent – with the exception of the Border Patrol agent I found sleeping in his truck – but I’ve always spotted them first, and been able to choose the location and type of our encounter. This also meant that when I wanted to avoid them, I was able to do so with relative ease.

I cannot overstate the dangers that these agents face. Smugglers avoid killing them for the political pressure it would bring to bear on the issue, but if so desired, cartel “operatives” could easily ambush and murder a dozen or more Border Patrol agents or sheriff’s deputies in a day and disappear across the border before any possible response from other law enforcement officers. The level of coordination and organization required for this would be minimal. The cartels are aware of this. In other words, the only thing keeping a significant number of law enforcement officers alive at any given time is a lack of desire on the part of extremely violent and brutal criminal enterprises to kill them.

Walking the Desert

For illegal immigrants and smugglers, the journey truly begins at the border fence – if one exists. Near towns or cities, tall fences discourage crossing or jumping, but these fences only extend a few miles past each town. Beyond that, they give way to shorter vehicle barriers, which present no challenge to those on foot. Farther from towns or roads, vehicle barriers change to barbed wire fences or even nothing at all. In other words, crossing the border is more of a milestone than an obstacle.

Many times, those traveling on foot are dropped off right at the border, and are led by one or two “coyotes” who have made the journey numerous times. Rather than simply walking in the general direction of “north,” the paths chosen seem to be well organized and prepared in advance, though the trail markers are not always easy to spot or identify.

Trash is fairly common in remote areas of the desert, which smugglers use to their advantage. Finding two “arm covers” for couches or chairs next to one another marks the recommended direction of travel – the open end of the cover pointing the way. Sometimes, scraps of fabric were used in the same manner.

Every plant and animal in the area has adapted itself to desert life, either physically or through behavior modifications, while humans must carry water with them and carefully adopt behaviors that are not naturally occurring.

Naturally occurring water is exceptionally difficult to find in the desert, but bottles and jugs can often be found under trees or bushes, left by various groups. Most of these are black so as not to shine in the sunlight and attract attention. The majority are empty or only partially full. Some are slashed open or shot, which I consider to be sadistic acts.

When water is not found, dehydration quickly turns to delirium. Discarded clothing – especially items that are very useful in the hot sun, such as hats – can be a sign that someone was in serious trouble.

I have covered a little more than 10 miles across desert terrain on a 95-degree day without water, and consider it to be a very challenging experience.

As mentioned above, hiding in the desert is a fairly easy task. Even when most plants aren’t in bloom, the amount of vegetation is sufficient to limit visibility on flat ground to as little as 20 yards, with a maximum of perhaps 200 in more open areas.

A lot of foot traffic in this area follows washes, or dry creek beds, for several reasons. First, they tend to be lower than the surrounding terrain, providing natural concealment from observers on higher ground. Second, they generally run north and south overall, which is beneficial to those traveling from Mexico to the United States. Finally, temperatures can be significantly lower in washes, especially in the evenings and early mornings.

Groups of illegal immigrants can vary in size from half a dozen to over one hundred. Most of the time, these groups have lead and trail elements, looking for dangers ahead of and behind the group.

Instead of shouting to one another, coyotes apparently communicate with one another using various hand and arm signals – none of which I know the meaning of, but I was at least able to tell that they weren’t just waving at me.

Smuggling Operations

Daytime activity is reduced compared to night – cooler temperatures and the cover of darkness provide an advantage to those seeking to avoid detection and conserve water in the desert. Technology becomes a bigger foe to them at night, for agents generally have night vision equipment, and helicopters use thermal imaging to locate heat sources.

Smugglers are not unaware of these technologies, and take advantage of it whenever possible. Outside of the environment, the greatest danger to illegal immigrants is not American law enforcement, but rival smugglers or cartels looking to rob, rape, or kill. Most of this activity takes place at night.

As has been related to me by various Border Patrol, CBP and local law enforcement agents, hills and mountaintops are sometimes occupied by scouts and observers for smuggling operations. When they are captured, they are often found with radios, cell phones, spare batteries, automatic rifles, night vision devices, and binoculars or spotting scopes. Their purpose is to report on the movement of Border Patrol agents to smugglers or coyotes in the valleys or washes below.

Many coyotes will lead their party into the desert, then demand additional payment – those who cannot pay are left stranded. When this happens, some give up and wait to be rescued by the Border Patrol or local law enforcement, while others continue north – but without knowledge of water caches or which routes to take, the odds are that their journey will not be successful. Those who give up often just sit under a tree and call for help, not wishing to avoid American law enforcement officials any longer. Several officers and agents told me about situations where illegal immigrants had the chance to escape, but did not do so.

In Summary

I’m hesitant to refer to those calling for increased border security as alarmist, for I, too, believe that current border security levels are inadequate. However, the real situation is not exactly what is claimed by some, that one can simply sit at any point along the border and watch drug mules pour across like ants, and so on. When descriptions of the border situation become too fantastic, the average person does not believe them, and starts to discount all reports of trouble along the border. The real situation is more frightening, but also more understated and not as exciting to talk about on TV or the radio.

It is possible for individuals armed with rifles or other weapons and equipment to walk across the border and travel to major population centers in the United States while avoiding contact with law enforcement. This is largely due to the relatively vast area that must be covered by relatively few agents and deputies, who are spread thin and exposed to great danger.

As I stated above, border violence is only limited due to the cartels’ knowledge that “turning up the volume” would cause increased enforcement. This results in an interesting situation, where the potential for violence is extremely high at any given moment, while the actual level of violence does not begin to rise that high – excepting crimes against illegal immigrants, which can be extremely brutal and most often go unreported.