As they made their way up and down a mountain road at the bottom of Otay Mountain, a way that traffickers frequently use, members of the press and various Border Patrol members huffed and puffed.
Border Patrol Agent Eric Lavergne led the walk and pointed out visible signs of smuggling along the road, including discarded clothes, backpacks, plastic bottles, footprints and also broken branches.
” That’s not a natural break, it’s a sign people were walking through this area, walking up this trail”, he said. ” Typically, we would adopt this and record them out”.
When most hikes take place on this trail south of downtown San Diego, Lavergne said agents frequently have to observe smugglers and migrants at evening.
” When you’re going at night you ca n’t see where you are really walking, so you’re relying on an individual in front of you who is usually the smuggler”.
Lavergne added that those who enter the country illegally usually lead Mexican nationals who have little or no success getting hospital because they are well-versed in the area.
” On these routes, there are people who genuinely believe they will be deported, including Mexican immigrants with criminal background. But those people are now aware that if we catch them and put them in our system, they will likely be flagged and they will either be detained or put in jail.
Another issue Lavergne pointed out is that drugs are not frequently smuggled into the road.
The majority of cocaine entering California and San Diego pass through the ports of entry, according to Lavergne, who occasionally reports seeing one with five pounds of cocaine in their backpack or something similar. Consider that five lbs in a handbag is not inexpensive when compared to hundreds, if not thousands of pounds in a video.
Border Patrol agents claim that stopping individual and drug trafficking is a part of their job, but the agency’s Missing Migrant Program also includes a significant part in rescuing lost and injured workers.
According to Acting Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Bernin Salas, the San Diego Sector has rescued 1, 497 workers and located 23 dying workers this fiscal time. The message is clear: Would not introduce yourself to entering the United States illegally. … Do n’t put your life in danger”.
Border Patrol’s wealthy Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue groups, or First, are one of the ways they liberate workers.
During a show Wednesday night, agents, using a U. S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft, displayed their abilities as they lifted a man out of the paint and out to safety.
” All First agents have been trained as either doctors or incident medical specialists,” according to BORSTAR Cmdr. Michael McEwan. In those difficult-to-access spots along the border, we are specially trained and equipped to deal with health emergencies. No matter whether you’re First or certainly, we all work together and can concentrate on one another to save these people in all kinds of situations.
After the First demo and the 3.5- km hike, Lavergne joked with writers, saying this was a comparatively simple hike.
It was not.
