Container dangers
On November 11, 2004, Border Patrol agents from El Paso rescued 26 undocumented Mexican immigrants from a Union Pacific Railroad container bound from Marion, Ark. to Long Beach, Calif. There were eleven adult males, eight adult females, one juvenile male, and six juvenile females in a single container, including three 12-year-old children. The migrants did not have any food, water, or provisions with them. The case is under investigation to determine how, where, and who facilitated the migrants boarding the container. Fortunately, none of the migrants required medical attention. The train car was not locked, but this scenario is all too similar to other situations that resulted in death or serious injury.

Photo Credit: R.C. Martinez

Border Patrol agents practice using the Frisbee-like rescue disk for water rescues.

“We believe that every apprehension of a migrant on a train averts a potential tragedy,” said Chief Patrol Agent Luis Barker, El Paso Sector. “Over the years, we have witnessed unspeakable horrors involving migrants being smuggled on the railways.” During fiscal year 2004, Border Patrol agents have rescued 44 migrants from freight trains in the El Paso sector alone.

Even for those who don’t suffer from claustrophobia, being crammed into a confined space for hours is cause for high anxiety. Of all smuggling methods, this is the one where a person gives up the most control. Jammed into a confined, crowded space; maybe locked in; no independent access to air, light, food, or water, relying solely on an unscrupulous smuggler—this exemplifies human cargo at its most vulnerable.

But there are other scenarios that are equally dangerous and there is no limit to the tragedies that have played out in these environments. Almost every week there is a press account detailing the latest Border Patrol rescue of an illegal immigrant from a perilous situation. Extreme temperatures, exhaustion, dehydration, predatory animals, drowning, and suffocation—these are but a sample of the hazards that await those who make illegal attempts to cross our borders.

A river rescue
Two weeks later, agents from the Laredo sector made a different kind of rescue. This time it was on the Rio Grande, where agents patrolling the banks noticed three individuals attempting to cross the river near the Laredo Water Treatment Facility.

The family—father, mother, and an infant, panicked during their attempted crossing of the turbulent waters and started screaming for help. Responding to their cries, agents threw out a rescue disk, which resembles a giant frisbee, to establish contact with the family. The mother grabbed the rescue disk and was pulled to safety. However, the father, who was holding the baby and a backpack, would not relinquish his hold on the backpack and was unable to grab the disc. Losing his footing, the father and child went under water and resurfaced moments later. A Border Patrol agent, sensing imminent tragedy, removed his shirt and gun belt and dove into the river to assist the pair to safety. Once safe on the riverbank, the agent inverted the child to clear out any water in her airway. Baby and family were reunited and turned over to emergency rescue personnel and transported to a local hospital.

Peril in the ocean
Elsewhere, yet another incident illustrates the scope of the human smuggling problem and the inherent dangers in illegal crossing attempts.

In waters near Dorado, Puerto Rico on December 3, 2004, a small boat commonly known as a “yola” carrying close to 100 migrants capsized at sea approximately half a mile offshore. U.S. Coast Guard air units first spotted the boat and alerted the Border Patrol and the Puerto Rico Police Department, who dispatched agents and officers to the scene.

Approximately 40 migrants from the Dominican Republic had made it to shore, and the Coast Guard rescued approximately 30 more migrants stranded at sea. Preliminary reports indicate that eight migrants drowned. During the rescue attempts, a boat from the Puerto Rico Police Department also capsized in the rough waters, but the officers on board were also rescued.

A legacy of tragedy
Border Patrol agents are acutely aware of what can happen—in containers, on rivers, canals, mountains and in the desert. In May of 2003 in the deadliest border-crossing incident on record, nineteen illegal immigrants, including an infant, suffocated in the back of a locked semi-trailer that had been abandoned by the smuggler near Victoria, Tex. The trailer carried as many as 100 suspected illegal immigrants. The previous record for number of deaths was in 1987, when 18 Mexican immigrants died inside a sealed boxcar in Sierra Blanca, about 60 miles east of El Paso.

But tragedy isn’t defined by numbers. The tragedies also unfold in twos and threes:

• Two men’s bloated bodies found floating in an irrigation canal in Arizona;
• Four people found frozen to death in the mountains;
• A young woman found dead from dehydration and exposure trying to find shelter from the heat.

At the borders, the United States and Mexico have launched joint public service campaigns with posters, radio and television ads that warn of the dangers of illegal crossings. Sophisticated technology and enhanced use of infrastructure along the border seeks to intercept illegal crossers before they can come into harms way. Despite these efforts, Border Patrol agents continue to apprehend illegal immigrants and to intervene and rescue illegal immigrants who risk their lives to enter the United States. LK