“Look out!” I yelled at my wife, Sherry. We had parked next to the huge steel wall between Sunland Park. New Mexico and Anapra, Mexico in hopes of talking to the families on the Anapra side when suddenly I spotted a shirtless young man running towards our car. Then he veered off, ran to the wall and scrambled up it.
I have seen a man cross with an aluminum ladder in what seemed like just seconds but I had never seen anyone climb it with just his hands like this young man. When I tried to spot him descending on the Mexico side, another man appeared, masked and wearing a red shirt. Because of the mask, I couldn’t understand what he was saying; Then he too was gone. This was September 14.
According to a recent poll, over 50 percent of New Mexicans support building more walls on the border. Is this the answer or is it just part of the answer? The larger question is border security, an issue that 84% of those surveyed see as a somewhat serious or very serious problem? I too agree and I am sure that most Texans do as well.
There are three elements to border security, according to Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Claudio Herrera Baeza with whom I have spent several mornings in the Sunland Park area. The wall is one; the other two are technology and personnel. Look at how they impact heavily trafficked areas like west of El Paso and between Sunland Park and Anapra.
Beginning in 2019, the Border Patrol installed more monitoring towers. This paid off in March 2021 when agents monitoring one of the newer towers spotted cartel members lowering two young girls from Ecuador, ages 3 and 5 over the wall and then just dropping them on the US side. Because they could monitor this area remotely, the Border Patrol were able to save these two little girls.
The key potential new technology, however, pertains to drug smuggling. Contrary to a current myth, the vast majority of drugs are brought into the US in large trucks crossing through ports of entry. Congresswoman Veronicas Escobar from El Paso and Congressman Gabe Vasquez from southern New Mexico have been leaders in pushing for technology that would enable agents to quickly scan those trucks without unnecessarily impeding the huge flow of commerce between our two countries.
Although it was a shock to see this young man practically vault over the Sunland Park-Anapra wall, the wall is part of a border control system but not the whole answer. And it is being upgraded. West of El Paso and Juárez, there are miles of wall where “coyotes” have cut through the wire and crawled through with the migrants who have paid them huge sums for passage to the US. Now construction crews are placing vertical metal bars on the US side so that this area will no longer be accessible.
Just east of the Anapra – Sunland Park wall, the Border Patrol has built a dirt road that goes steeply up the shoulder of Monte Cristo Rey so that they can surveille the Anapra area and spot groups of migrants that are getting ready to attempt a crossing.
These are small steps but they indicate that the wall is important and that work continues to be done to make it more inaccessible.
The key issue is having enough Border Patrol agents. Funding for additional agents was a major component of the Border Act, the bi-partisan Senate bill sponsored by Senators Murphy (D-CT), Lankford (R-OK) and Sinema (I-AZ) which was shot down on orders from Donald Trump earlier this year. As I’ve written in the past, to make an issue of border control and then vote against this bill is the height of hypocrisy.
These three tools can help with border security but the lure of the United States will continue. We could also cut down on the numbers of those attempting to cross illegally by allowing for more work permits. We need the workers, they need the income. I don’t understand why this non-partisan issue gets no attention.
As for Mexico, will its new president, Claudia Sheinbaum continue to limit access to its southern border? Will she place troops in places like the Anapra wall as was done until two years ago? Will she find a way to deal with the cartels that make billions of dollars smuggling drugs and people into the US? Will there be programs to deter young men and women from signing up for a cartel job?
Our elections are only days away. Soon the need to use immigration as an election tool will disappear. Can that lead to a new level of compromise and cooperation on this issue on which the two parties are actually not that far apart? I’m cautiously hopeful.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Morgan Smith, a retired lawyer and government official from Colorado who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Smith writes regularly on border issues. He has been going to the border – mostly Juárez and Palomas – at least monthly for the last 13 years to document conditions there and assist a variety of humanitarian programs and, more recently, migrant shelters. The column appears in the Rio Grande Guardian with the permission of the author. Smith can be reached by email via morgan-smith@comcast.net.
