Border Patrol

You are currently browsing articles tagged Border Patrol.

early morning in the desertWell. Last Thursday, things did not go as planned

Well, unless the plan was to spend 3 hours in the desert trying to reach my source and hoping he was just running late (he wasn’t), things did not go as planned.

The appointment had been to find out about an active search for a 21-year-old man who disappeared approximately 7 weeks ago. I’d spoken to the man leading that day’s trip and tracked down the phone number of the missing man’s father, who’d come to Tucson from Tennessee in hopes of finding answers, the original tip coming from a mass email:

“Could you please run on the [humanitarian organization] site a notice that there is a father here from [a southern state] who has been looking for his 21 yo son left by his group 5 weeks ago and please call and take him out if people have time?…He has been here in Tucson for five weeks, living on the street and searching daily…He’s been sent a map of where to look but it’s a very bad map from the person who was with his son and was apprehended and deported. The map maker would like to be paid for a better map……..BTW, he’s already checked the morgue (negative) and I will check hospitals today.”

Then a week later, a notice that more help with the search was coming from San Diego “for his 21 year old son…who was left behind in the desert, ‘en mala condicion’ on April 18.”

My goal was to hike out with the searchers and find out how their location and recovery work is different from that of the volunteers who provide humanitarian aid through water drops and rescue patrol. It would be a bonus if I could also find out more about the stories of the missing man and his father – especially how he traced someone in the group to get a map.

But planning ahead was no match for crossed wires and cell signal issues – one phone went straight to voicemail, the other to a recording that the user could not get calls or take messages. (I’m still trying to get through on one line or the other, and am optimistic I’ll reach the expert from San Diego as we’d played telephone tag before a few years ago while I was finishing my original story for News21 – yet I regret to say that my hopes of reaching the father are rapidly diminishing.)

Border Patrol vehicles get gas at Three Point, Arizona's Robles JunctionI was half an hour early for our 6am appointment. By 8am I’d counted over 30 Border Patrol vehicles alone – and I was realizing I would probably need to go back to my original posting plans. The break in the usual programming was not going to be necessary after all. A few phone calls and mobile google mappings and I pulled out of the parking lot half an hour later resigned to the 2.5 hour solo drive home, all if which with my tail between my legs and hoping no one would notice I was back more than a little early.

About a mile east I pulled over and looked at the map again. With my north Phoenix apartment as the starting point, I was over 75% of the way to Sasabe if I continued south on the 286 between BANWR and the Tohono O’odham Nation. And from there I could drive eastwards on the twisty Arrivaca Road to pick up the I19 which connects Nogales back to Phoenix through Tucson. And I already had the day off…

flowering tree on Hwy 286 between Three Points and SasabeI decided to go exploring.

I’d come this way twice before, in winter and midsummer, and now the land was lusher and filled with the colors of thick bushes to slowly bleaching grasses. Diamond warning signs for floods and fire gave hints at the volatility of the valley landscape that rolled along either side of the highway beneath the eyes of parallel mountain ranges while border patrol checkpoints and white private security buses hinted at other kinds of volatility.

With no goals or appointments I was free to move slowly and notice details along the nearly empty like fully flowering trees or ringed roadside shrines.

I took the trip in pieces, regaining the familiar lines of the metro Phoenix skyline as the heavy summer sun begins to slide onto the horizon. Back in my apartment for the night with my shoes by the front door I checked the day’s mileage for this trip to and along a sliver of the U.S.-Mexico border between Arizona and Sonora and it clocked in at just over 460 miles.

view of Baboquivari Peak from Hwy 286 between Three Points and Sasabe between Sasabe and Nogales on Arivaca Road between Sasabe and Nogales on Arivaca Road


View Larger Map

between Three Points and Sasabe

This post is cross posted with my other blog, Missing from Mexico.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here’s what I’ve been up to – to see the rest of the my team’s updates, go here.

Amid southern Arizona’s vast landscape of dry foothills, valleys and mountains it’s easy to feel very small.

The people that I’m writing about move through this land, sometimes on a daily basis — they include hikers and hunters, law enforcement and humanitarian volunteers, and the people illegally crossing Arizona’s section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

With the land playing so much of a role in the stories I'm reporting, I decided early on that I needed to see it and experience it for myself. On my first trip I was confident that I'd kept track of where we'd parked the jeep — only to be completely wrong. During the second trip I witnessed dramatic shifts in weather and vowed to be better prepared next time. Most recently, exhausted from the heat, I felt my head swimming despite all my efforts to stay fit, rested and hydrated.

There are rewards — glimpses of elusive wildlife, the fiery wildflowers, unforgettable sunsets. But people who underestimate the harshness of this area are taking a huge risk.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Here’s the second half – or top three layers – of my border mapping project :

Border Relations

Consulates, humanitarian groups, and medical facilities that play a role in policy along the border.

key:
red = medical facility
green = humanitarian organizations
pink = El Salvadoran or Guatemalan consulate
lavendar = Mexican consulate
turquoise = US consulate

Border Patrol

US Border Patrol stations along the US-Mexico Border, with each station’s sector assignment in the key.

Border Lands

A breakdown of border boundaries, plus cities and facilities that play a role in Arizona or Tucson Sector policy.

key:
red = medical facility
green = humanitarian organizations
pink = El Salvadoran or Guatemalan consulate
lavendar = Mexican consulat
turquoise = US consulate
yellow = US Border Patrol Station

sources : http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/border_patrol_sectors/, http://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/eng/edirectory.html, http://www.mexonline.com/consulate.html, http://www.consulateofguatemalaindenver.org/cons_eng.asp, http://www.elsalvador.org/embajadas/eeuu/home.nsf/0/12f9de74529dada785256b0a005ba4c8?OpenDocument

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m working on a big project for one of my classes – one that’s been growing and growing and growing to the point where it’s spilled over into two other classes! The project involves many locations along the US-Mexico border and will have a number of media components to show different parts of the story and the data. There’s going to be a major mapping component, and I’ve started posting some of the locations with Google Maps since they can be embedded into the final website for one of the classes.

Google Maps does not have a layering feature, so I’m experimenting with simulating a layering effect through creating multiple maps. Each will have a different component of the story – cities, boundaries, etc. – and will go on the same section of the final webpage. The last map includes all layers from the previous maps. Here are the first two – let me know what you think, and if you have suggestions for what I should include, leave me a comment telling what and why!

Border Boundaries

American and Mexican states along the US-Mexico border.

Border Cities

Cities that play an important role in border policy and migrant travel routes.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers:

%d bloggers like this: