8/10/14, "Hidden Cameras Capture Smugglers Crossing Border 'No-Man's Land'," NBC News, Mark Potter, Tucson, Ariz.
"A cattle-ranching couple in southern Arizona hopes that dramatic hidden-camera video showing suspected drug or immigrant smugglers crossing their property will help persuade federal officials to shift resources southward to eliminate what they call a dangerous "no-man’s land” along the border.
“It just confirmed what
we already knew,” Jim Chilton, who runs the 50,000-acre ranch with his
wife, Sue, said of the video, which was filmed this spring by a
border-security advocacy group. …“We have ceded to the cartels 20 miles,
30 miles inside the United States.”
For years, the Chiltons
have publicly complained — even testified before Congress -- that their
ranch southwest of Tucson, which shares a 5-1/2-mile border with Mexico,
has been flooded with smugglers. They’ve told of surprise encounters
with groups of migrants – some of them armed –- break-ins at their home
and finding piles of trash and clothing left by the trespassers.
But they hope the new video footage will help others understand what they are up against.
“The fear we have is
running across a group coming across with an AK-47 dressed in camouflage
garb and carpet shoes and small backpacks on their backs carrying meth,
crack or heroin,” said Jim Chilton.
With the Chiltons'
permission, a border-security advocacy group placed hidden cameras on
well-worn paths in March and April about 10 to 15 miles north of the
international boundary with Mexico, which is marked on their ranch only
by a four-strand barbed wire fence.
In June, the advocacy
group, which posts its video on the website SecureBorderIntel.org,
returned and recovered footage of suspected smugglers crossing the ranch
in broad daylight.
Two of the groups carried large backpacks commonly used to hold bundles of marijuana.
Another group carrying
smaller backpacks was dressed head-to-toe in camouflage. The man at the
end of the line could be seen trying to sweep away their footprints in
the sand.
The director of the
SecureBorderIntel.org website asked not to be identified publicly, but
provided NBC News with a statement explaining why his group posted the
video: (at link)
“The United States
government has failed to secure our land, air, and sea borders, despite
the wishes of and responsibilities to the American people,” it said.
“Our effort to document the porous border between the United States of
America and Mexico serves as date and time stamped evidence of this
failure.”
Critics take issue with a
Border Patrol strategy in which it maintains only a moderate presence
in rugged areas adjacent to the border in order to spread its resources
farther, allowing agents to drive roads and man checkpoints miles north
of the border. The agency calls this approach “defense in depth,”
comparable to a football game in which defensive backs are expected to
stop smugglers who make it through the front lines.
But Anthony Coulson, a retired DEA special agent, said the strategy leaves border ranchers like the Chiltons vulnerable.
“The Chilton ranch is
between the border and those (Border Patrol) checkpoints,” he said. “In
that buffer zone that we’ve surrendered, they’re defenseless.”
Sue Chilton said she used to freely cross the ranch alone, but now is afraid to travel without an escort.
“I’m careful not to go
out and be where I think I’m going to interact with these folks,” she
said. “They are armed and they are cartel.”
That fear is
well-founded, said Coulson, noting that in recent years cartel smugglers
have become more aggressive in protecting their loads. He said he
feared another incident like the unsolved 2010 murder of Arizona rancher
Rob Krentz. Authorities believe Krentz was shot to death on his own
land by a smuggler.
In a statement to NBC
News, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it currently has more
technology and more agents patrolling the Arizona border than at any
time in history, dramatically reducing illegal immigration.
"Tucson Sector has
rancher liaisons who are in constant contact with our stakeholders,
including the Chilton family," it said. "As a result of previous
conversations with the Chiltons, Tucson Sector has deployed additional
resources at the Chilton ranch to include personnel and technology."
Meantime, the Chiltons said that
since the video was shot, they have had other instances of smugglers
crossing their land and fear there is no end in sight.
“I’d like for people to
get some sort of feeling for what it feels like to be here in the United
States and yet seeing people coming through your land,” said Jim
Chilton. “From a national security point of view, it’s just outrageous.”"
Image: "See smugglers cross from Mexico into US," NBC News, still from video
.
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