Pubdate: Sun, 23 Jan 2005
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: David Kelly, Times Staff Writer

BORDERS, PRIORITIES BLUR ALONG THE 'WILD FRONTIER'

Illegal Immigrants and Drug Traffickers Stream to New Mexico to Avoid 
Patrols Elsewhere.

COLUMBUS, N.M. -- Frustrated by security crackdowns in Arizona, thousands 
of illegal immigrants and drug traffickers are flooding once-quiet New 
Mexico, making it the newest frontier in America's struggle to control its 
southern border.

Border Patrol agents who once caught handfuls of immigrants a day here now 
arrest 140 or 150 a night. Armed confrontations are increasing, high-speed 
chases have become routine and officials say they lack the resources to 
hold the line. At the same time, Mexican crime syndicates using two-way 
radios and sophisticated cellphones have American law enforcement under 
surveillance.

"They will call in our agent locations and spy on us at our base right 
here," said Colby Morgan, an intelligence officer operating out of the 
Deming Border Patrol Station, the largest in the state. "We haven't seen 
that before. They are getting at us from both sides of the border."

Palomas, Mexico, just across from Columbus, is a hub for smuggling cartels 
that view New Mexico as the easiest way to move people and drugs into the U.S.

And Deming, about 35 miles north, has become a distribution point.

The cartels' clout was evident last year when Palomas authorities tried to 
arrest a drug kingpin. Gunmen shot up the police station, torched the cars 
and sent eight officers and their families fleeing to Columbus in search of 
political asylum.

"We are a potential flashpoint on the border," said Rick Moody, patrol 
agent in charge at the Deming station. "There has been a gradual shift from 
Arizona to here. We have illegal vehicle crossings every day; fences are 
being torn down; our cars are getting hit with rocks. Ten years ago, this 
was one of the least active areas on the border; now it's the wild frontier."

In 2003, New Mexico arrested 48,633 illegal immigrants; in 2004 the number 
rose to 61,374. The Deming station saw apprehensions jump 26% last year, 
while the Lordsburg sector 60 miles west had a 109% increase. Border 
checkpoints like the one at Antelope Wells in far southwest New Mexico once 
averaged a single drug seizure a year. In 2004, it had seven. This month, 
border agents found 4,400 pounds of marijuana inside a pickup truck.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said the clampdown in Arizona was making his 
state "the preferred alternative for drug trafficking and human smuggling." 
He has requested more agents, vehicle barricades and cameras along the 
border. The Department of Homeland Security is looking into shifting 
resources to New Mexico.

"We have to increase staffing and security efforts all across the border," 
Bingaman said. "The idea that we can put our resources in one place and not 
see the problem move somewhere else is clearly wrong."

Others say such efforts are futile until there are better jobs in Mexico 
and stiffer penalties for those hiring illegal immigrants.

"New Mexico is the last frontier. The same cycle that occurred in Arizona 
is likely to repeat itself there," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the 
Center for Comparative Studies on Immigration at UC San Diego. "Supply and 
demand must be reduced; otherwise whatever we do is just a symbolic show of 
force."

For years, New Mexico's 180-mile border has been the least defended in the 
Southwest. Immigrants once preferred crossing into Texas and California, 
closer to major cities and transport centers. But crackdowns there funneled 
many into Arizona, now the busiest illegal crossing point in the nation, 
with 500,000 arrests last year. The state recently received $10 million in 
federal aid, unmanned surveillance aircraft and 200 new border and customs 
agents -- bringing its total to 2,000 for about 370 miles of border.

New Mexico has 425 agents to patrol 14,000 square miles. Much of the border 
is unmarked and open -- no fences, boundary lines or roads to show which 
side is which.

The Southwest New Mexico Border Security Task Force, a group of New Mexico 
and federal law enforcement agencies, issued a report in 2003 saying it 
didn't have the resources to adequately protect against drug dealers, 
illegal immigrants and "potentially weapons of mass destruction" crossing 
the border.

Border agents say they have run into heavily armed Mexican soldiers inside 
the U.S.

"I have found up to 10 Mexican soldiers in a Humvee on our side of the 
border," Moody said. "We don't know what they are doing here. They usually 
say they got lost. When that happens, we confront them and escort them back."

Some officials here think elements of the Mexican military are involved in 
drug smuggling.

The border is a quiet patchwork of farms, mountains and small desert towns. 
Federal agents depend on helicopters, underground sensors and camera towers 
to help cover the region.

Illegal immigrants often know the cameras' visual range, and cross where 
they can't be seen. Spotters sit atop hills in Mexico with cellphones to 
report which way cameras are pointing.

Life for the Border Patrol is increasingly hectic and dangerous. On a 
recent night, calls poured in from all over -- groups of 30, 25, 10 
migrants, coming from all directions. Only a third of those who cross are 
caught, agents say.

"A few years ago it wasn't so bad," said Border Patrol agent Jack Jeffreys. 
"Now you come to work and think, 'Maybe I won't be going home tonight.' "

Jeffreys was plowing through prickly pear in his Chevrolet Blazer, trying 
to catch a group of migrants outside Columbus. He jumped out and joined two 
other officers walking with flashlights.

They quickly found eight men, one woman and a 5-year-old boy hugging the 
ground. Their bags held Mexican passports, a cellphone with global 
positioning coordinates and water bottles full of raw garlic.

"They think garlic keeps away snakes," said agent Harry Brown. "A lot of 
these guys come from tropical environments and know nothing about the desert."

They were taken to a cramped processing facility in Columbus, fingerprinted 
and checked for criminal records. If the reports came back clean, they'd be 
released the next morning into Palomas.

"I came this way because it's easy," said Carlos Bueno, 35, nabbed while 
trying to reach Los Angeles. "There are too many police in Arizona."

The surge in illegal immigration here hasn't produced the vigilantism seen 
in Arizona, where armed citizens sometimes round up migrants. One reason is 
the relative dearth of people living along the border. The other is fear.

James Johnson helps run his family's 160,000-acre ranch with 15 miles 
bordering Mexico. Over the last few years, they've had their fences cut and 
their trucks stolen and seen smugglers ferry drugs over their land.

Vigilante groups have called offering their services.

"If we did that, it wouldn't be three weeks until one of our throats were 
slit," said Johnson, 29. "A lot of these vigilantes don't live on the 
border; they live in cities or towns where the people crossing don't know 
them. But these people know us."

Two years ago, he confronted some men in a truck on his property. "I asked 
what they were doing there," he said. "They pulled a gun, aimed it at me 
and said they could do whatever they wanted."

His father was robbed of his truck at gunpoint by men who fled to Palomas.

"I think 90% of the public thinks of the border as Tijuana or El Paso or 
the Rio Grande," he said. "They don't realize most of the border has no 
fence -- no markings at all."

The biggest border community on the U.S. side is Columbus, a town of about 
1,700 people three miles north of Palomas. It's a place of sandstorms and 
trailer homes, with a tiny downtown that quickly melts into the surrounding 
desert. The local police department -- the chief and a pair of patrol 
officers -- operates out of a rented two-room office.

Chief Clare May sees cars blow through town at 100 mph with border agents 
in pursuit. Stolen vehicles litter the roadsides, and drug and immigrant 
trafficking is rife among those in his community. Calls for assistance, 
often related to illegal immigrants, jumped from 450 in 2003 to 900 last year.

"We have drop houses here that will charge illegal immigrants $50 a night 
and house 15 of them," he said.

Locals can earn $1,500 to $3,000 transporting 100 pounds of marijuana to 
Phoenix, or $1,500 to smuggle an immigrant, he said.

May has taken his M-4 automatic rifle out on calls to back up border agents.

"The federal authorities know we are inundated, but their focus is on 
Arizona," he said recently. "This doesn't have to be another March 9, 
1916," he said, referring to a raid here by Mexican revolutionary Pancho 
Villa that left 18 Americans dead. "But if they get by me and get by the 
Border Patrol and customs, then they're coming to you."

Across the border in Palomas, men and women huddled under trees in the 
plaza, waiting for nightfall. Many had arrived in buses from other parts of 
Mexico.

"All these people want to do is work and to fill the jobs the Americans 
don't want," said Rodolfo Vazquez, owner of a barber shop overlooking the 
square.

Five young men with backpacks sat on a broken park bench. One had been 
caught the night before by the Border Patrol and released in the morning. 
He grinned as he swigged tequila from an old motor oil jug.

"Tonight I will try again," he said confidently. "This time I'll make it."

Word was out, the men said: Arizona was too tough to cross, and New Mexico 
was easy by comparison.

"I hear the ranchers [in Arizona] get paid for every one of us they turn in 
and go to jail if they don't turn us in," said a man from Veracruz who 
refused to give his name.

They were waiting for a yellow school bus that came every evening, taking 
migrants out past the American security cameras.

Luis Sanchez, 23, was heading for Miami.

"I can work there and save my money so someday I can go back to Oaxaca and 
live," he said. "It's beautiful in Oaxaca. I have my house and my life 
there, but there is no work, so I come here. Maybe it's the last chance for 
me."

A man strode over and whispered angrily to the group, warning them not to 
talk to strangers.

They got up, bent their heads and walked into the twilight, waiting for 
their ride north. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake