Saturday Night on the Border

It started out as a very quiet Saturday night on the line. I was assigned to Post 4. The wind was annoying and it was very dark. The sky was sparkling with stars. Every shooting star I saw prompted a wish of 20-30 Illegals to cross my path. Around 10pm the temp dropped a bit and it was getting pretty chilly. Then the wind died down and I started hearing a few foot steps in the dark. I didn't have Night Vision Goggles last night so I had to rely on my ears and over-50 eyes. The few foot steps grew into many foot steps. I couldn't see any bodies, but the foot steps kept growing in size and sound. Before long it was sounding like an Army marching straight towards me, in the dark. I had heard this familiar sound off in the distance laterally crossing in front of me. But this time the sound was growing and growing and coming right towards me. I had visions of being tramped by hundreds of stampeding Illegal Aliens. My partner and I were positioned on the north side of the road, facing south. We had our spot lights ready to be illuminated. We tried to quietly discuss when we should light them up. We didn't want to wait too long because if the lights caused the Illegals to scatter, we didn't want them to scatter to the north of us. It's best to keep them to the south of the road. We lit them up just as the first of the group stepped foot on the road. And they scattered!!! They ran to the left and to the right. But 5 or so stood still, in the desert, picking cactus thorns from their clothing. Three slowly came out of the brush onto the road. Several others were still standing off amongst the Ocotillos, trying to decide what to do. They decided to run. I called in to our line leader that we had 3 IA's on the road with many others still out in the desert. The 3 consisted of a man, very small woman and a boy looking to be about 12-14 y/o. I assume they were a family. They had a one gallon container with a few cups of water remaining in it. They all shared it. The woman kept talking to me and I kept trying to explain to her that I didn't speak Spanish. My partner fired up his car to position it so we could use the head lights to keep the area illuminated. I think they thought they were going to load up into the car. The Border Patrol Agents arrived about 10 minutes later. Upon talking to them, it was determined that there were 30 more from their group still out in the desert. Eventually there were 3 Agents searching the desert for the remaining IA's. About an hour later it was reported that BP apprehended 10 more. And on the midnight shift, 11 more were apprehended.

Ah, life is good out on the front lines. Come join us if you can!!!

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