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[Background guitar music; blowing wind]
[Narrator:] Working on the United States
and Mexico border is different than working any
where else in the country.
There are two types of illegal activity in this area
that you need to be aware of that could affect your work
or put you in danger-drug smuggling
and illegal immigration.
Let's take a look at drug smuggling.
[Interviewee:] Any place you go along the border,
you will find a lot of smuggling activity,
a lot of cross-border illegal activity.
We have cartels that smuggle narcotics into the United States
from Mexico in this area.
And these people have historically shown themselves
to have no concern for human life.
[Interviewee:] So they're trying to move
through as quickly as they can.
They move very, very quickly.
They often have a couple of people that are carrying food
and water for them, [crunching leaves] and almost all
of them have weapons of some kind.
They have scouts on the hills above that will be radioing
if they see any law enforcement in the area
so they change their route.
They do not want to be caught.
It's a felony that they're committing and they often,
when they're detected, they'll often run.
They hide their drugs and hope
to come back to them, potentially.
[Interviewee:] We view the drug smugglers
as being more dangerous because they have a lot more
at stake, monetarily.
The drugs moving through are very valuable.
It's got a high commercial value and if you get in their way,
they have a lot to lose.
We also know that a lot of them, or a certain percentage of them,
are armed so they're a lot more potentially dangerous
than illegal migrants.
And then there is also the knowledge that some of them are
on drugs at the time that they're moving the drugs
and it could be something that makes them extra aggressive
and less rational-methamphetamines
and who knows what else.
So their behavior, you can't predict it
to be a rational response to just encountering you
out in the backcountry.
[Interviewee:] Historically, the drug
and the human trade has been separate.
But right now, we're seeing more of a trend for the drug cartels
to be controlling the cross-border human trade
as well.
We've seen instances where they will send a vehicle loaded
with humans across, and we'll all drive over and catch it
and while the agents are occupied with that, they'll send
in a load of narcotics in the same area directly afterward.
Yeah, they're all tied together.
[Narrator:] Now, let's turn to the other major problem
on the border, illegal immigration.
It includes the illegal immigrants themselves
and the people who smuggle them for money, known as coyotes.
[Interviewee:] I've been here a long time
so when I first started here it was rare to see an immigrant,
and when we did, it might have been one person-a single person.
These days it's common to see 20 to 50
to even 70 along side the road
that border patrol has apprehended
[background talking].
[Interviewee:] Virtually every cross-section
that you can think about, everything from young kids,
basically, and moms all the way through to very elderly people.
It's not uncommon to have people in a group
of undocumented immigrants that might be 75 or 80 years old
that are coming across.
So, you get every cross-section that you can imagine.
This particular area, here, has got more
of what the border patrol calls OTMs, Other Than Mexicans.
So, they're Guatemalans and they're from all over the world
that come through this particular area
[Interviewee:] [background talking]
From what we understand, there is a lot of money involved.
Prices that we've heard, at this point, are anywhere from $1,200
on up, depending upon the type of transportation you're going
to get once you get into the United States.
[Interviewee:] There's a lot at stake and so people are,
I mean they're going to do whatever they have to do to get
through because sometimes it's their life savings,
often people actually don't even have the funds
when they get here.
They become indentured servants to their coyotes
until they can make that money.
And the coyotes will threaten their families
until they get that money.
[Interviewee:] Well, the coyotes are the people, the smugglers,
who lead people through the park,
through this area, and lead them North.
They're often the ones who arrange
for the whole transportation cycle for the people to move
into the United States, so it can involve leading them
through on foot, and also, then, getting them to a vehicle
or a safe house, or anything like that.
They usually carry weapons of some kind, either guns
or knifes, and they almost always have cell phones,
sometimes radios, and they often, when they're caught,
will try to get rid of those things and blend
in with the rest of the group
and not identify themselves as a coyote.
The potential is that they could try to protect themselves,
or try to get away, by injuring somebody who's trying to get
in their way, [background talking]
and that potential is very, very high.
[Interviewee:] Pollero is the guy
that guides them to the border.
They're the ones that leave them out in the woods.
And these people are not from this area.
They don't know the country and they get lost.
So all the sudden they see a road and they start sticking
to the road [crunching footsteps] instead of going
up into the mountains.
They stick to the road and keep on walking
until they get some help.
The ones that we meet, they usually don't have water
and they're thirsty, and they're stopping to talk
to anybody that's along the road to try and get some water
from them, to keep on going.
But they try to stay on the road
so they can get help because they're lost.
A Pollero usually tells them, "I'll be back in a minute."
They disappear, they leave them out there.
[trudging footsteps]
[Interviewee:] These folks are told when they get
to the seven wire international fence that Phoenix
or Tucson is just over the hill and they have no idea they are
in for miles, miles upon miles, of rugged walking
in an area that's got no water, no potable water.
They're just out there on their own.
I don't think they know that.
[trudging footsteps]
[Interviewee:] We've had what we call instances
of border banditry
where criminals come across from Mexico.
A lot of them are tied into the smuggling rings,
so what's happening is they're robbing the people
that they're smuggling across which would seem
to be an example of the snake eating its own tail,
but they're not in it for the people, they're in it
for the money and so we've had many instances
of armed robberies especially in this area.
We've had numerous instances of groups being told
to strip down, strip naked.
They've held guns to their heads.
They've assaulted the women and they steal all their money
and send them on their way destitute.