Agents in harm's way on nightly patrols

FRANCISCO MEDINA
Tucson Citizen

"We have two (people) south of 331," the radio dispatcher says.
On a recent Monday night, the voice over the radio starts calling out where to go and how many "border crossers" there are in every group.
Nogales east supervisor Miguel Jimenez directs media officer Mario Escalante to go straight. We're in the area.
The Border Patrol truck comes to a stop. Both agents jump out and start looking around a ravine thick with mesquite and brush on the eastern outskirts of Nogales.
At this point, the only thing they know is they are looking for two people - they could be gun-toting smugglers or immigrants in search of work.
In this area, illegal border crossers trigger sensors, which notify border agents. Closer to downtown Nogales, agents track illegal border crossers with night-vision video cameras and direct other agents to intercept them.
After walking up and down slopes slippery with loose rock for about a mile and a half, the call comes over the radio: Another agent has caught the border crossers.
Back to the vehicle and on to the next call.
As we drive along the border fence, Jimenez explains that on a hill on the Mexico side of the border, lookouts in "the castle" keep an eye on U.S. agents and decide when it is clear enough to send people across the fence line.
"The fence isn't going to stop them," Escalante said. "But it will slow them down."
Because the hills on the Mexico side are higher than on the Arizona side, it is easy for the guides to point crossers in the right direction and tell them which way to run and where to hide.
As the sun sets, the light of the moon serves as illumination for the guides and crossers to start making their run into Arizona.
The radio once again comes alive, directing agents on bike patrol: "We have three bodies scaling the fence."
Jimenez and Escalante, who are just around the corner, jump out into the darkness with flashlights and night-vision devices.
Following Jimenez in the darkness and crouching behind a mesquite a mere 20 yards or so from the fence, I can hear the people scaling it.
The more I listen, the more my heart races and my adrenaline pumps. Jimenez turns to me and says, "Let's go around this side and get them."
I follow and we hear, "Corre, corre" (run, run). As we crest a hill, a young woman runs toward Jimenez.
"Migra, migra," shouts Jimenez, trying to make the woman slow down before she collides with him at full speed.
"What happens is, they are running into the lights and when they pass them they are blind and don't have their night sight yet," he said.
The woman is winded. Jimenez takes her by the hand and escorts her to another agent's vehicle. As she's being loaded into it, she says she's from Mexico City.
The radio crackles once again. This time, cameras have picked up a man running through the streets of Nogales and jumping fences.
The bike patrol starts to move in, trying to locate the man.
We make our way up the street as agents check out backyards.
"Stop. He jumped right there," says the voice of the agent monitoring the video cameras.
Jimenez walks between two homes to a dimly lit backyard. Dogs can be heard barking at agents from nearby yards.
As I walk around the corner, I think to myself how vulnerable Jimenez is. He doesn't know whether at any moment he could take a shot from a border crosser or a resident.
He continues to walk through dark yards, looking in trash cans, behind sheds and into potential hiding spots.
"There is a guy in my front yard who doesn't want to leave," a resident says before she closes the door.
Jimenez makes his way to the front yard and asks in Spanish, "Where are you from?"
The man answers in English, "I'm from here. Why? Why are you bothering me?"
"Calm down," Jimenez says. "I'm just asking where you are from and why are you in this lady's yard."
The man says he lives a couple of houses away.
Jimenez tells him to leave and the man starts to walk down the road.
The search for the border crosser continues.
The bike patrol is heard over the radio. It has caught the suspect just up the road - the same man Jimenez allowed to walk away.
Bike patrol agents have an advantage, Jimenez said. They have nightly contact with residents and know when there is a strange face in the area.
"The reason we are able to go into these yards legally is because our cameras were able to see the crosser jump into the backyards and lead us to the area," Jimenez said.
This is a slow night, Jimenez said.
As the weekend approaches, he adds, it gets busier.