"It's Our Job to Stop That Dream"

The endless, futile work of the Border Patrol

Malia Politzer from the April 2007 issue

(Page 2 of 13)

 

Welcome to the Arizona desert, where smugglers and the Border Patrol are locked in a daily struggle. One group looks for clever ways to smuggle goods and people across the border; the other looks for cleverer ways to stop them. Caught in between are the migrants, for whom the outcome can mean the difference between life and death.

 

Vasquez is trying to teach me the rules, but the game's already over. The Border Patrol lost a long time ago.

 

"We don't have any specifics on the call, so we don't know who we might run into here," Vasquez whispers as he pushes past the spiny black branches of a mesquite tree. "Could be a group of U.S. citizens out on a hike. Could be a group of drug-smuggling aliens. Could be a group of aliens in distress. We don't know, so we have to be careful."

 

Lost in the Desert

A Tucson-sector Border Patrol public relations officer, Jesus "Chuy" Rodriguez, later tells me that of all federal agents, members of the Border Patrol are the most likely to die in the line of duty. The claim is hard to substantiate, but it's certainly true that border violence has risen sharply in recent years. Attacks on agents more than doubled between 2004 and 2005, from 374 to 778, according to congressional testimony last March by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner T. J. Bonner. People throw rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails at the agents. They shoot them. They run them down.

 

As Bonner noted, the escalation in violence is linked directly to enhanced enforcement efforts at the border. Forcing migration into the open desert increases the cost associated with crossing, Bonner told Congress, squeezing out small-time smugglers and increasing violent struggles to control "lucrative smuggling operations." He added that "although much of this violence is directed at rival organizations, there is an inevitable spillover that touches innocent civilians and law enforcement officials on both sides of the border."

 

For agents like Vasquez, the thirtyish father to a baby girl, that means taking extra care. He walks a few steps in front of me, motioning at me to stay behind him.

 

We find the men we are looking for a few moments later. There are four of them, their clothes and backpacks covered in a fine layer of red dust. They put their arms up in surrender when they see Vasquez. He approaches them casually, speaking calmly.