Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Narrator:] While working near or along the US-Mexico border,
you may encounter drug smugglers
or illegal immigrants at any time.
As a result, employees feel they need to take extra precautions
to avoid these situations.
Here are some specific work practices you can use
to keep safe.
First, let's listen to the importance
of working closely with border patrol.
[Interviewee:] I guess, the best thing, if somebody were to come
down here and they're not used to this, they come from an area
that doesn't have these issues, that you need to get
with those agencies that deal with this on a daily basis
and coordinate with them and talk to them and find
out where their issue areas are and try to get
as much intelligence from them as you possibly can gain.
And we talk frequently with the agents
to see what their activity level is, where their activity is,
where their hot spots are, are they having some issues,
what they're seeing come across,
are they just illegal immigrants coming across
or are they seeing areas
that are specifically where the loads
of drugs are coming across.
And so if you know that type of thing, then you can be aware
of that when you go into that area and you can sort of react
to it, hopefully before you're surprised
to the situation that is occurring.
[crunching gravel]
[Interviewee:] Our big thing is on the coordination,
we send our employees down here.
Their safety procedure's in place for them to come prepared
so they do the calling of the Border Patrol prior
to arriving at the site.
They give the vehicle description that they're in,
the number of personnel that are with them.
It's an extra step, but now
because of the increased violence potential here,
it's better to take that time and make the call
and get the coordination and the border patrol has been very
helpful with that.
Sometimes they'll even be nearby while we're doing work;
especially if there have been recent, violent incidences.
[Narrator:] Sometimes, employees feel it is essential
to have a law enforcement escort when working in the field.
[Interviewee:] You know, we have a whole list
of standard operating procedures for our staff.
They are not allowed to go into some areas
because they are too dangerous.
They can go in there only with a law enforcement escort.
[Interviewee:] If an employee is going
into a high risk area, it's very appropriate
to ask for an escort.
Few employees are willing to ask for that.
I think there's some fear that they'll be seen as weak
or it's an intimidation thing, or it's not macho,
and so they won't ask for an escort.
That's unfortunate because it's made available.
And particularly if it's a situation
that there's current activity
and we know that it's going on.
We can advise them, "Hey if you're going to do this,
maybe we ought to do it a different time,
or maybe you should do it at a different day of the week,"
or "can you accomplish the same mission
at a different location?"
So the employees should be willing to ask for that.
[Interviewee:] We're about 200 yards from right now, as we sit,
from some really criminal activities that are going
on just south of us here.
So, that you have to be pretty vigilant and make sure
that you're in complete contact with your office,
you have an escort with you.
[Interviewee:] We have a maternity cave
for an endangered bat on the refuge,
and we monitor the numbers and, in doing so, at night,
there is law enforcement present.
The interesting thing is law enforcement likes doing it, too.
It's a bit of a change and they're resource oriented,
and they help out the biologists, from time to time.
A lot of times our law enforcement have degrees
in wildlife biology or wildlife management,
or some resource subject, so it's enjoyable for them.
[Narrator:] Because of the number of arrests near
or along the border, employees are at risk
of finding themselves in the middle
of law enforcement pursuits and apprehensions.
Here is what you can do to avoid getting caught
up in these situations.
[Interviewee:] Typically, if we have situations on the refuge
where there's law enforcement involved and apprehension
or some kind of activity, we do our best to stay out of it.
If we come up upon it, we get out of there
and not get ourselves involved.
[Interviewee:] We've had some employees who have actually been
out in the field doing resource monitoring
and have gotten in the middle
of a pursuit-border patrol pursuing a number of immigrants,
and the immigrants swarmed around these people,
our staff-who were not in uniform,
and basically our people tried to move off to the side
as quickly as they can, which was perfect, and they radioed
in immediately that they were in the area, that they were
in the middle of this pursuit
so that our rangers could notify border patrol,
that we had people and staff in the area.
And again, the communication is so important, so that we can get
that information to border patrol.
[Interviewee:] The other part of it is on our backcountry roads,
often law enforcement/border patrol is either moving
at high speeds, either because they're in pursuit
or they're moving to a different location.
One of the things we tell employees to look
for are the dust plumes in the distance,
and if they see a dust plume,
is to find a place to pull off the road.
They don't know whether there's a pursuit going on
or whether it's just a normal activity going on,
but to always be assuming that there's potential
for an encounter of some kind, that they need
to get their vehicle off the road and get out of the way
so that they're not in danger of being in an accident.
[Interviewee:] Yeah, we are really vigilant on these roads.
We go a little slower and make sure and stay to the inside
of your side of the road because they are really only one lane,
15 mile an hour roads, the chases are a real thing,
more at night than during the day.
[Interviewee:] Another thing to be aware of,
in this area especially, you wouldn't think
of it being a riverine environment in the area
that we are in, it's very typical for people
to drive across this river.
So when you're in the area, be cognizant
of vehicles [chirping birds] being driven
across because the people driving them, won't swerve
out of the way to avoid you.
Their main concern is to get the commodity into the interior
of the United States and they'll do it by hook or by crook.
They will take you out and there have been many instances
where this has happened.
They will just drive right into traffic and when you're
in this area, you're traffic.
[Narrator:] Anytime employees leave a vehicle in the field,
it could attract illegal immigrants or drug smugglers
who need supplies or a ride.
Here are some of the precautions employees take.
[Interviewee:] Whenever you go out into the field,
you park your truck nose out.
So that means if you ever need to jump in the truck,
it's ready to go, you're ready to get out.
You don't have to back up or anything like that,
you are ready to get out of that situation as quick as possible.
We lock the truck every time we leave it for, if we're more
than 5 inches away, we lock the truck.
I suppose someone could take off with it,
and that is something we do think about,
but I can't spend my time worrying about whether
or not my truck is going to get stolen.
If I'm leaving the truck,
I obviously take everything I would possibly need with me out,
so we always have our communication stuff on us
and we always have water and food for the day.
That's about the best you can do,
you can't prevent that from happening.
You can just protect yourself by leaving it locked
and just hoping nobody needs a truck that day.
[Interviewee:] We tell all the staff, lock the vehicle.
We have security bars,
the steering wheel locks, we put those on.
Some of our vehicles have disabling devices on them.
So we do that, you know, its physical security for the truck.
[Interviewee:] Well if I'm leaving the vehicle,
I never go anywhere more than maybe a couple 100 yards away
from the vehicle unless I've got a map,
compass, and a GPS, and a pair of binoculars, and my radio.
Those are my lifelines, along with water are essential
for getting along out here.
[Interviewee:] We try to lock everything up inside the vehicle.
A lot of the engines, they'll keep their two-week packs on top
of their vehicles, or their overnight gear, we tell them
to put everything either in one of the side boxes,
or lock it up in the front of the truck,
so those things don't get stolen on project work.
[Interviewee:] We advise people not
to leave a vehicle over night.
Be dropped off, have somebody come back
and get you, if possible.
[crunching footsteps] If a vehicle has to be left
for an extended period of time,
we advise putting water outside the vehicle because more
than likely that's what the illegal aliens are going
to be looking for, and they're not likely to damage the vehicle
if what they need is water.
However, be prepared for that vehicle maybe to be vandalized
or not there on your return.
Therefore, you need a stash of water for yourself.
Take adequate water; stash it somewhere else away
from the vehicle.
If you're not carrying a radio,
stash a radio there or something.
Wipe out your footprints, if you can, but have some sort
of contingency plan should you come back
and the vehicle is gone.
[chirping birds]
[Interviewee:] So many times, people have come back
and their truck is either gone or somebody is trying
to steal it or hot wire it
and those are interesting situations.
What we tell the staff, is
"look the government truck is not worth it.
Just, if you come back and somebody is trying to steal it,
you know, go the other way, just get on the hand held radio,
call in and get somebody to come get you but don't go
in there trying to be a hero and save the government truck.
It is not worth the risk."
[Interviewee:] Also, you don't come back to your vehicle blindly.
It's just like with the canyons, you find some place,
you look around, see what's going on, does it look
like anybody has messed with anything, if not,
then okay go ahead and approach it.
It's just a matter of being careful, that's all.
Without putting too much of a dramatic emphasis on it,
I also am always watching for escape routes.
If I leave the vehicle and I come back,
there's people milling around the vehicle that I don't want
to involve myself with.
Where am I going to go from here?
And so I've usually always got myself a secondary route either
to get out to Ruby Road or get to a place
where I can call dispatch.
[Narrator:] Experienced employees have found the best
way to protect themselves is
to avoid dangerous encounters all together, they pay attention
to the red flags that indicate illegal immigrants
or drug smugglers are in the area and immediately leave.
[Interviewee:] The kind of stuff we're going
to see here would be the kind of warning flag you'd be wanting
to pay attention to in the field.
It lets you know that people are using the area
and they could be there now.
Some of the things we watch for when you come on a site
like this is to be aware of things
like can you hear voices nearby, do you smell cigarette smoke,
marijuana smoke, anything of that nature.
Food containers, a tuna can,
if you can stand here and you can still smell the tuna
in the can, you can see wet tuna juice in it,
you know that the people are not that far ahead of you
and they may be very nearby, you need to back off.
[Interviewee:] You can run into a lot
of different kinds of things.
A lot of burlap and other kinds of things
that you know are associated with drug smuggling; burlap,
and rope, and there's several other indicators that you may be
in a high traffic area for drugs.
Other places where you find mostly clothing and water bottle
and food substances and that kind of thing are going
to be more probably associated with undocumented immigrants.
[Interviewee:] There are different signs you look for.
Like, they put cans, trail to trail, mark their trail,
they'll put like soda cans or beer cans
on the edge of the tree branch.
Anything like that that you know, it's a marker,
so you know that you're traveling
or traversing near a path of theirs.
So you just be careful.
[Interviewee:] Just being aware of your surroundings.
I patrol with the windows down and the air conditioner off.
That way I can hear, smell, and see.
If I'm out walking around,
I'm looking at what's going on around me.
I'm looking for anything that's out of place.
Does that pile of rocks look like it just happened
or does it look like somebody piled them up there?
If so, why do you think they did?
Is that a mining monument?
Is it somebody's trail marker? What is it?
You just stop and think about those things.
You don't dwell on these things, but you notice them,
and you pay attention to them, and they will give you clues
as to the situation you're in.
[Interviewee:] What we're looking at, here,
is a well-used and well-known foot trail in the park
that has some recent foot traffic on it
that our chief ranger pointed out, here, for us.
You can see a really well-defined sneaker print here
and a different tread over there.
It's a group of people that came through today, sometime.
And this is an example of the kind of thing that we would be
looking for in the backcountry while we are walking around.
What we do in a situation like this is to react the same
as if you see trash piles or other evidence, is suddenly go
on a higher level of alert,
assume that there could be people very nearby
and they could be trying to evade being seen,
and you could be, possibly, the enemy
or the interdiction forces.
What I normally would do working out here is just kind of stop,
take a deep breath, look around
and start paying very close attention to all my senses.
Can you hear anything,
do you hear people talking, can you smell anything,
are there ravens in the area?
[croaking ravens] We've learned here that ravens have learned
to key in on trash piles and large groups of migrants
because they can scavenge some of the trash
that they leave behind, so if you see groups
of ravens clustered in a tree or circling low,
maybe over a large wash, it might mean
that there are people there
or there's a least a trash site there.
[Interviewee:] [chirping birds] Animal activity usually ceases
around the presence of humans.
If the birds all of a sudden go quiet, or if birds all
of a sudden fly up next to you, be aware that there's something
out there that startled them away.
Another thing is noise; you can hear the vehicles
as they drive across.
The foot traffic, [rustling grass] the foot traffic that's
coming across will generally just try and avoid you.
They'll hide and they'll lay down in the bushes
and try and avoid you.
[crunching footsteps]
[Interviewee:] Be aware of your surroundings.
Don't just be blindly walking down a trail.
Keep your wits about you.
I advise people, if it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.
If you get this uneasy feeling or the hair on the back
of your neck sticks up, it's time to get out.
And there's nothing out there worth risking your life
or your well being.
[background guitar music]
[Narrator:] Employees sometimes feel uncertain
when they encounter people in the field
because they just don't know who they are dealing with,
it could be just a visitor
but it also could be an illegal immigrant, a coyote,
or even a drug smuggler.
As a result, they stay alert and keep an eye out for signs
that people aren't who they appear to be.
[Interviewee:] It's really hard sometimes to decipher
"who is who" out there to distinguish
between just an immigrant coming into this country for work
versus somebody who's smuggling drugs,
unless they're carrying it on their back.
[Interviewee:] People even ask me at times, "Well,
how do you know they're smugglers?
How do you know they're immigrants?"
And to be honest, I can't know that 100%, I really can't.
I mean, it's pretty certain when you see people
with backpacks walking across the desert with water jugs,
that you've encountered immigrants, but in terms
of actual smugglers, generally, the coyotes blend right
in with everybody else.
You won't know until you see somebody driving a vehicle,
or until you see somebody up at the front of the group,
if you actually you see the group
where someone's leading a line of people,
that person is the coyote.
[Interviewee:] You don't know who the smuggler is.
Most times, when we do capture a group
that has a smuggler leading it,
he will do his best to blend in.
Before they even start, many of the aliens
that we've interviewed have told us, "He told me if I pointed him
out as a smuggler, that they would go in and get my family."
So they threaten them before they come
across with bodily harm and harm to their families.
[Interviewee:] The people from this side of the border
that are coming to pick up the material, however,
can be very, very dangerous.
You have to be very careful about dealing with them,
about getting hooked up with them.
They tend to pretend
to be something else if they're out there.
Usually they'll be trying to act like campers or act
like bird watchers or something of this nature.
And, you have to pay attention,
make sure your watching what's going on to try
to determine whether the people
that you are talking are really what they say they are.
[Interviewee:] I get a lot of reptile collectors out there.
These two guys were trying
to tell me they were reptile collectors,
but they had no collection bins, they had no snake hooks,
they had absolutely none of the gear
that would normally be associated with this.
So it was pretty clear to me
that they weren't collecting reptiles.
If they had caught any, they had no place to put them.
A situation like that, it was pretty obvious
that they're pretending to be something that they're not.
And it's not our job to figure out what that is.
It's our job to recognize that this is a situation
that is not necessarily what it appears to be,
and at that point it's beyond the scope
of what we do deal with.
We'll turn it over to the people that do deal with that.
[Interviewee:] The person that's broken down with the vehicle
that looks like they're the mom and pop out to look at the birds
and so forth, because we get a lot of bird watching here,
we've had that staged several times as a stage breakdown
where oh, no, they've already called somebody else in.
They're just waiting for them to show up
and we don't need any help.
What they are is a lookout for the smuggler.
If you look on the front seat, a lot of times you're going
to find out that they've got 3 or 4 cell phones
and maybe a two-way radio and possibly a lot
of times a firearm right there in the front seat
of the vehicle, but you can't tell that from
the real legitimate person that's broken beside the road.
[Interviewee:] The things that I look for to raise my level
of concern about a campsite.
First of all is their attitude,
are they nervous about you being there,
you look for either anything
that is there that shouldn't be there, an excessive number
of containers, anything like that,
things that would not normally be associated with camping,
or you look for something that's not there that should be there.
Do they have tents? Do they have sleeping bags?
Do they have the things that you would normally expect
to find at a campsite?
Is the campfire being used?
If it's not being used, is there a charcoal grill,
or gas stove around?
Are they appropriately dressed?
Do they have the proper shoes are a dead giveaway.
If they have city shoes on out there in the woods,
they are almost certainly not camping.
What type of vehicles are they?
You can tell when a vehicle belongs in the woods
and when it's normally not supposed to be there.
[Interviewee:] What I do is just look at the cars
because you're going to have,
especially down here a Cadillac Escalade camping in the middle
of nowhere, $50,000 car just for nothing
out in the woods, and that happens.
When we were patrolling Agua Fria Canyon,
I seen a Corvette in there.
Why would you want a Corvette in the middle of the road?
[Interviewee:] See, like this car right here.
What's he doing here?
There's no hiking trails, no nothing around here.
They load drugs out of that canyon up there.
If you look, you pay attention around the fence,
you can see it's all bent
up when they push it down to cross over.
Like right there, see that hole?
[Interviewee:] On this forest
and in these districts, you cannot ever let it slip
out of your head because it has to be there.
Every time you get on a forest road,
every time you see a vehicle parked on the side of the road,
you don't know whether it's some nice public person
that pays their taxes,
or somebody's parked a vehicle there for some other reason.
[background guitar music]
[Narrator:] Despite all the precautions employees take
to avoid encounters, on occasion they still run
into illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, or drug stashes.
Let's hear what they do to get out of these situations.
[Interviewee:] To encounter illegal migrants in the backcountry,
I'll usually stop moving and start backing off, but do things
without even thinking about it like putting up your hands
and showing that you're no threat
and that you're no danger, kind of universal sign language
to back off, just to try to diffuse the situation
until you can get it managed by calling in help,
or whatever is appropriate.
[Interviewee:] Be cognizant of where you're at and what's
around you because, yeah, most of us do that, anyway, but here,
it's even more important because
we've had range people out riding come
up on a drug load, so what do you do?
Well, you just push your horse on through and hope they forget
about you, because like it or not, we try to make them feel
like that we're not their enemy.
We're out here doing a job.
And then when you get to a point where it makes sense
and you let somebody know you saw them, but just work
through them, work around them, ignore them,
because we want them to know that we're not
out here running enforcement on them.
[Interviewee:] My co-worker
and I were working in, like a Bosque area,
pretty heavily dense area with a lot of mesquite trees.
We were picking up trash in there
because we knew there was a lot of trash in that one site
and all of a sudden, she wasn't near me any longer,
because we usually try to stay pretty close together
when we're working, just for safety.
And, I, all of a sudden, I heard male voices
that were speaking Spanish and I was like, I couldn't see her,
I couldn't see them, nothing, and I was like, "Oh, goodness.
What am I supposed to do?"
So we just, we both have walkie-talkies, and so I got on
and I just asked her, "If anything was okay,
if she needed anymore trash bags, what was going on."
You know, so we just got talking because it was like we wanted
to increase our feeling of security and let them know
that we had a way to communicate with each other,
but that was probably one of the most scariest incidences,
just not being able to see people.
[Interviewee:] The favorite technique that I like to use
to disengage from one of these questionable contacts is I will
ask them what they have seen in the woods.
The common thing is quad traffic.
Well, you guys have been out here,
have you seen any quad traffic around.
Normally, I got a bunch of them out here; we're trying
to keep them under control.
It usually works pretty well to get the conversation
around to things that you would expect us to be involved in
and keep it at that level.
It never hurts to play dumb.
Body language, facial expression, they expect us,
like I say, to be a friendly forest ranger.
[background talking] You set up a legitimate excuse by typically
by asking them if they have seen this,
and that gives you a good reason to,
a reason that doesn't trigger any suspicion
when you go ahead and leave.
[Interviewee:] If you come into contact
with an illegal border crosser, the standing order is
that you don't approach them.
When you find yourself in a situation, whether it appears
to be may be illegal migrants
or even drug smugglers, you go the other way.
And then you call law enforcement as soon
as possible and let them know.
[Interviewee:] We advise our employees
that if they see drug smugglers or undocumented immigrants,
and so forth, to get away
from that particular environment before they actually call the
situation in, if they can,
because that can just draw unnecessary attention to them.
[Interviewee:] If you come across stashed drugs
or sometimes lost drugs, part
of the drug load might get lost in the dark.
The safe thing to do is to assume
that the drug smugglers are nearby
because that is very often likely to be the case.
It fits their method of operation, is that they,
when they rest during the day,
they hide in the shade during the daytime
and they'll stash the drugs in a wash, cover it with a brush
or something, so if you find something that even looks
like it has been buried and may have been there for a long time.
It may have been there just a few hours
and it's just the safest thing to do is assume
that they are nearby, that they are watching it.
Get out of the area, and call it
in to law enforcement staff as soon as you can.
[Narrator:] A difficult situation employees face
when working along the border is coming across people who are
in distress and need aid.
These people may need food, water,
or be suffering from heat stroke.
The question employees struggle with is whether or not to help?
[Interviewee:] It definitely is
at the discretion of the employee.
There's no cookbook. There can't be a cookbook
because every situation is completely different.
If you see somebody in the trail that's in just total distress,
you're going to offer them water.
[blowing wind] Some of our employees are EMTs
so that they can provide medical care, if it is really needed
but you also have to be careful because sometimes people may act
as if they're in distress and you don't know.
You don't know if that's the situation, is that there's,
they're acting out something.
[Interviewee:] [radio chatter] In general, we advise people
and we follow this advise ourselves is to have
as little contact as possible with illegal immigrants.
It's hard to pass up these people, and know that they're
in distress, or have a need of some sort, but you never know
if they're up to no good.
You don't know if the person trying to flag you
down might be a decoy.
It has happened that people have stopped for someone
who is flagging them down and then they'll yank the person
out of their car, and take off in their vehicle.
[Interviewee:] It can get dangerous
really quick and we try to avoid those types
of individuals whether it be UDA's
or just people walking down, like down this road here,
we found 5 or 6 people, they may try waiving you down
and need some help, but it's probably more prudent
to go a little further, get on the radio, call our dispatchers,
tell them, "Hey, I found, see 6 individuals
who are walking south on Ruby Road," give them a GPS reading
and go on your way and do your work.
[Interviewee:] It is not legal for us at any moment
to transport anyone in the desert.
That's why we have the communications that we have.
The border patrol feels that it is very unsafe for us
to do this because, most likely, they are going to be able
to provide more onsite help than we would be able to do
because they have EMTs that are able to come out
and do some more medically intense work than we could.
[Interviewee:] It's our nature as folks
that work in public lands and public service
to render aid no matter who it is.
And it's taken a real shift in our thinking away from that.
And it basically comes down to this: we don't know
who we are dealing with.
A significant number of people who are coming
across have some criminal history;
whether that means they're a threat, I don't know,
but neither does the person that is out there
that may decide to render aid.
Let's give them guidelines they need to get away from the area
to keep them safe, but then also to render aid for the people
that need it by getting on the radio, giving us a call,
noting what they're seeing and where they are, and,
quite honestly, we're going probably be in better position