Reyes Mata III
Las Cruces Sun-News
February 27, 2012
Illegal immigration — once comprised primarily of groups of peaceful family travelers — has streamlined into smaller packs of younger, more aggressive men who use the remote desert region beyond the urban border to smuggle people and drugs into the United States, say some agents who patrol this area.
These younger illegal immigrants, some carrying 50 pounds of drugs for several days, travel in groups of two to five and evade capture by heading quickly to the mountain canyons of the Texas-New Mexico border, agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection say. If these illegal immigrants are to be caught, agents say, it’s best done before they reach a cavernous maze where the stone ground makes tracks harder to follow and the rocky terrain blocks them from view.
To do that, agents are using a tool familiar to the Southwest.
“For the mountain regions, we use horses,” said Bobby W. Stephens, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, who spends at least ten hours a day tracking illegal entries into the country.
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