Could the Big Bend in Texas be the border's weakest link? Smuggling of drugs and migrants is on the rise
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Dec 26, 2017 | 8:40 AM Border Patrol agents in Texas’ Big Bend region have seen an increase in smuggling, attacks on agents and migrant deaths in recent years. ï‚™ ï‚‚ ï¤
Two Border Patrol agents bent to study the sandy dirt like animal trackers — what they call "cutting for sign."
They didn't have to look far.
Just yards from the Rio Grande, Agent Lee Smith pointed to footprints and scraps of carpet. Smugglers tie carpet to their shoes in hopes of covering their tracks, he said. Smith followed the rough trail through thick brush, his fellow agent close behind, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a long gun.
They saw no one. But the agents sensed smugglers watching, waiting.
"They come right across. What's here to stop them?" Smith said.
Sometimes smuggler scouts cross on horseback: The muddy banks are pocked with human and horse tracks. The river here, about 60 miles east of El Paso, is just a few yards wide, one of the reasons Border Patrol agents in Texas' Big Bend region have seen troubling increases in smuggling, attacks on agents and migrant deaths in recent years.
"There's hundreds of these crossings just in our area of operation," Smith said. "The drug cartels, they own this part of the land. We have conceded large swaths of the border. There are areas where there are not agents for days."
He called the vast Big Bend "the absolute weakest link on the southern border."
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http://beta.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-patrol-big-bend-2017-story.html
