Their mission: Turn back migrants, save lives
No guns, no radios: This is Mexico's border patrol
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 29, 2008 12:00 AM

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Sonora - Mexico's unarmed border patrol faces a daunting challenge: Arrest often-dangerous smugglers and persuade people, who have invested their life's savings to cross the border illegally, to head back home.

The border agents patrol without weapons or radios in parts of the Altar Desert so remote that their cellphones don't work. Here, drug smugglers roam freely with military-style automatic rifles and satellite phones.

Called Grupos Beta, the agents are parts federal police, medic and social worker. They exist to deter hundreds of thousands of compatriots from dangerous border crossings and to rescue them when the harsh landscape and climate prove too much. Agents also arrest the coyotes who guide immigrants into the United States, violating laws of both countries. advertisement




Yet questions linger about the role and effectiveness of the Betas, who were disarmed in 2000 because of abuse allegations. Grupos Beta has fans and foes on both sides of the border.

Detractors portray the Betas as a Band-Aid against illegal immigration at best and at worst as adding to the problem. Supporters, including U.S. Border Patrol agents, point to the nearly 5,700 rescues by Betas last year along the U.S.-Mexican frontier. Human-rights groups say the Betas have overcome their image as armed thugs preying on immigrants to become respected as an elite corps of lifesavers.

"They have the power of persuasion, which is power. And they have access to the migrants, which is also a power," said Robin Hoover, who runs the Tucson-based Humane Borders, which is dedicated to saving lives in the desert.

Five agents patrol about 90 miles of border across from Arizona's Yuma County. When they encounter would-be immigrants, they hand them cartoon-style guidebooks that give advice on how to survive in the desert - assuming the people don't turn back after hearing tales of rape and seeing photos of corpses. Beta agents hand out water, food and clothing for those who continue north.

The pamphlets and tactics have enraged immigration-control groups in the United States, who accuse the Mexican government of encouraging illegal border crossings. But there is little else the Beta agents can do: It's not illegal in Mexico to cross the border, just as it is not illegal for U.S. citizens to cross into Mexico, so they cannot arrest crossers.

Jorge Alberto Vasquez Oropeza, who leads the Beta office in San Luis Rio Colorado, is proud his team arrested 36 coyote suspects last year. It was none the year before. Coyotes can get 12 years in Mexican prison, but, Vasquez says, migrants almost never testify and judges regularly let the coyotes go.


Lonely patrols


A recent patrol began at 7:30 a.m. with a strong scent of diesel smoke as Commandante Vasquez roared his trademark orange Beta truck to life. He headed east along Mexico Highway 2, which runs parallel to and 100 yards from the new border fence. A cold wind blew sand across the two-lane artery connecting Baja California to the rest of Mexico.

The road between San Luis Rio Colorado and Los Vidrios is dominated by four features that typify today's Mexican frontier:


• Wide-open desert. For years, this openness has made Arizona the most popular entry point for illegal immigrants, but the rough terrain often turns deadly.


• A military checkpoint. Just east of San Luis Rio Colorado, two dozen Mexican army troops, shouldering vintage wood-stock rifles, stop vehicles in search of narcotics. President Felipe Calderón has deployed thousands of troops to fight Mexico's war on drugs.


• Abandoned ranch houses. Dozens dot Highway 2. All lack windows, roofs and doors. They've become staging areas for bands of border-crossers.


• A 15-foot, metal-mesh border fence. The barrier dominates the landscape. It has choked off human smuggling near Yuma.


Evidence of crossers


About 15 miles east of town, Vasquez pulled off the road into Cafe Cesar to take a second look at a van. The woman driver glanced away. Lashed to her roof were two extension ladders, a more common sight near the fence these days.

He drove away without confronting the woman because planning to cross isn't a crime.

Vasquez and his team bounced off-road along the fence for three hours, stopping at known hot spots. One was the abandoned La Paloma restaurant, now a compound of cinder-block skeletons, where the mesh fence is temporarily interrupted by rocky hills.

The compound was empty, but rusty tin cans at the foot of one hill and an ice pick at the top signaled that spotters were there.

Farther east, at another hillside break in the fence, Beta agents found a pile of clothes, including black military boots.

"Narcotraficantes," said Beta Agent Ricardo Ramirez Piñal, noting that the dark clothes and small size of the group indicate drug smugglers. Footprints led around the fence, into Arizona.

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