22 hrs ago
KRISTIAN HERNANDEZ

ROMA — A man inside a white Chevy Malibu waited by the empty city park, a known pick-up spot just 300 yards north of the Rio Grande, as three people jumped out of nearby brush and into the car in broad daylight.

Border Patrol agents watched the smuggling operation miles away in the Rio Grande City station command center on large monitors broadcasting live aerial footage from surveillance cameras mounted on towers and aerostat balloons in the area.

Agents near the park listened to their radios as the command center tracked the driver through a residential area where kids could be seen playing in the street and their elders watched over them from the front porch.

“I want their training to become second nature to them, and for them to rely on the tools and knowledge necessary to make informed decisions without having to rely on me or anyone else because out here every second counts,” said the station’s Patrol Agent in Charge Ryan Landrum during an exclusive ride along with The Monitor last month.

Landrum listened from inside his unmarked SUV parked behind the local Burger King as agents strategized a plan. With the safety of the community in mind, they tried to avoid a high-speed chase and approached the car without turning on their sirens, planning a cutoff spot near the local Exxon.

Minutes later, the driver in the Malibu got spooked by something near the gas station and three men jumped out of the car into a nearby field. A rookie agent jumped out of one of the Border Patrol SUVs and chased after them on foot while his partner continued to tail the Malibu into another residential area off North Ebony Avenue.

The agent lost sight of the car as three other patrol units joined the pursuit, including Landrum who drove up and down the narrow streets looking for the black car.

Agents in the command center also lost sight of the car after it entered a dirt lot with a mobile home and drove under a covered car port. Landrum and the other agents rushed toward the area as surveillance cameras captured a man walking out from under the car port and boarding a brown SUV with tinted windows parked across the street.

But before the driver could reach the rush-hour traffic on Highway 83, a few blocks south, in his new getaway vehicle, agents stopped and arrested him, drawing to a close a chase that took about 10 minutes.

Busiest Station in the U.S.

Landrum, 34, is in charge of about 500 agents who patrol a 70-mile stretch of the Rio Grande, starting at the southern edge of Starr County and ending at the border with Zapata County at Falcon Lake.

There are many variables here, such as the varied terrain and proximity of populated areas to the river, which present challenges unlike any Border Patrol has faced across the Southwest border and which make this area a pristine destination for smugglers, Landrum said.

“In terms of routes of escape, the people coming across are looking at seconds to minutes to get away, whereas in Falfurrias maybe you have a day to track them,” he said. “To us it’s about disrupting and degrading them to where they are less effective. The technology allows us to disrupt the adversary and also gives me a greater sense of situational awareness to keep my agents and officers safer.”

Three ray towers and two aerostats assist patrol and special agents with K-9s on boats, horses, helicopters, and ATVs in the area every day with one mission in mind, “to make it an undesirable place for criminal organizations to operate” despite its long history of illegal smuggling, Landrum said.

A Historic Smuggling Route

This corridor has been a bustling trade route since the mid-18th century when goods and people coming north from the Gulf of Mexico would cross inland to the interior of Texas and beyond.

Roma was originally part of the Mexican town of Mier, about 10 miles northwest of modern Roma, in what was New Spain’s Nuevo Santander founded by Don José de Escandón. The distinctive high walls and wrought iron balconies of the 100-year-old buildings still standing in the historic district are a reminder of the Spanish and Mexican heritage of the city.

The river is shallow and easily crossed here where, according to a historic marker, three arroyos or canals used as travel routes used to converge. There is no fence or manmade barrier between here and the city of Miguel Aleman, Mexico, directly across the river, only steep sandstone bluffs where Border Patrol agents monitor the brush and the invisible border line somewhere underneath.

Defeating the Adversary

Countless arroyos, back alleys, and dirt roads stretch from the sandy shores of the Rio Grande connecting to neighborhoods, businesses and highways where smugglers continue to hide their commodities. During prohibition, it was alcohol; today, it is mostly cocaine, marijuana and people.

To stop them, agents here rely on technology but must also learn to use the lessons they’ve learned over the last century and apply them in new ways to gain the upper hand in this never-ending cat and mouse game, Landrum said.

“We have a very, very capable and formidable adversary that we are up against, and they are nothing if not extremely flexible,” he said. “Essentially, our ritualistic ways of planning and executing operations isn’t gonna cut it anymore. The way we did things 10-15 years ago isn’t going to defeat the adversary today.”

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