Heading down County Road 1 deep into New Mexico's Bootheel, one of the Mexican border's most rugged corridors, no sign warns of the drug mules - men smuggling 65-pound packs of pot on their backs - trekking expertly, constantly, through the ragged mountains that flank this valley, or of the migrants walking north in desperation. Illegal traffic of drugs and migrants is on the rise here. At the same time, Border Patrol says its ranks are running thin in the Bootheel; the Lordsburg station that mans two forward operating bases should have 284 agents, but is down by 50, or nearly a fifth of the force...In daylight, he says, the spotters working for guides known as coyotes, drug cartels, or both, are watching the Border Patrol as closely as the Border Patrol is watching them. Things have been picking up in the Bootheel. Migration patterns are shifting. After last summer's rush on the South Texas border by tens of thousands of Central American migrants, and under pressure by the Obama administration, Mexico toughened enforcement at its own southern border and along the coastal route north. The strategy has effectively pushed Central American migrants west into other corridors, including toward New Mexico...Gamez makes a stop at a second FOB behind the Antelope Wells border crossing, one of the border's least used ports of entry. The morning before, five Indian nationals and 48 Guatemalans, including seven unaccompanied minors, stepped over the low vehicle barrier there and gave themselves up...At the FOB, several agents have just finished a shift and are shooting the breeze around a table. A TV blares. They answer a journalist's question: What is the biggest misconception the public has about their work? "Really, honestly? They really think that it's secure, the border, with what we got," says Agent De La Garza, who declined to give his first name. "You need more people. You need more - not less. If they think that it is secure, it is not. There is no way. We're doing the best we can, but there is no way."...It can take a week to walk from the border to Interstate 10 - a key destination for both migrants and drug mules. But the two often represent different streams of illegal traffic. Border agents and Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies say drug mules often take the toughest mountain routes and do so expertly, walking relentlessly through difficult terrain without getting lost or winded. They have a schedule to meet: a load to drop off at I-10 at a precise time synced with the arrival of a vehicle that will pull off the highway. These men aren't in the country to look for work: Running drugs is their job. They'll head back to Mexico and do it all over again for a fee or a cut of the sale. A 65-pound sack of marijuana is valued at $800 a pound in the U.S., or $52,000, according to Border Patrol. Mules who fail repeatedly in smuggling loads often hand themselves over to agents, risking jail time rather than returning to Mexico empty-handed, where the cartel's punishment could be fatal.
No comments:
Post a Comment