 While working near or along the US-Mexico border, you may encounter drug smugglers or illegal immigrants at any time. As a result, employees feel they need to take extra precautions to avoid these situations. Here are some specific work practices you can use to keep safe. First, let's listen to the importance of working closely with Border Patrol. I guess the best thing if somebody were to come down here and they're not used to this, they come from an area that doesn't have these issues, that you need to get with those agencies that deal with this on a daily basis and coordinate with them and talk to them and find out where their issue areas are and try to get as much intelligence from them as you possibly can gain. And we talk frequently with the agents to see what their activity level is, where their activity is, where their hotspots are. Are they having some issues, what they're seeing come across, are they just illegal immigrants coming across or are they seeing areas that are specifically where loads of drugs are coming across. And so if you know that type of thing, then you can be aware of that when you go into that area and you can sort of react to it hopefully before you're surprised at the situation that it has occurred in. Our big thing is on the coordination. You know, we send our employees down here, there are safety procedures in place for them to come prepared. So they do the calling of the Border Patrol prior to arriving at the site. They give the vehicle description that they're in, the number of personnel that are with them. It's an extra step, but now because of the increased violence potential here, it's better to take that time and make the call and get the coordination. And the Border Patrol has been very helpful with that. And sometimes they'll even be nearby while we're doing work, especially if there's been recent violent incidences. Sometimes employees feel it is essential to have a law enforcement escort when working in the field. You know, we have a whole list of standard operating procedures for our staff. They're not allowed to go in some areas because they're too dangerous. They can go in there only with a law enforcement escort. If an employee is going into a high-risk area, it's very appropriate to ask for an escort. Few employees are willing to ask for that. I think there's some fear that they'll be seen as weak or it's an intimidation thing or it's not macho. And so they won't ask for an escort and that's unfortunate because it's made available. And particularly if it's a situation that, you know, there's current activity and we know that it's going on, you know, we can advise them, hey, if you're going to do this, maybe we ought to do it at a different time or maybe you should do it at a different day of the week. Or can you accomplish the same mission at a different location? So the employee should be willing to ask for that. We're about 200 yards from right now as we sit from some really criminal activities that are going on just south of us here. So that you have to be pretty vigilant and make sure that you're in complete contact with your office, you have an escort with you. We have a maternity cave for an endangered bat on the refuge and we monitor the numbers. And in doing so at night there's law enforcement present. The interesting thing is law enforcement likes doing it too. It's a bit of a change and they're resource-oriented and they help out the biologists from time to time. A lot of times our law enforcement has degrees in wildlife biology or wildlife management or some resource subject, so it's enjoyable for them. Because of the number of arrests near or along the border, employees are at risk of finding themselves in the middle of law enforcement pursuits and apprehensions. Here's what you can do to avoid getting caught up in these situations. Typically if we have situations on the refuge where there's law enforcement involved in apprehension or some kind of activity, we do our best to stay out of it. If we come up upon it, we get out of there and not get ourselves involved. We've had some employees who have actually been out in the field doing resource monitoring and have gotten in the middle of a pursuit, Border Patrol pursuing a number of immigrants and the immigrants swarmed around these people, our staff, who were not in uniform and basically our people tried to move off to the side as quickly as they can, which was perfect and they radioed in immediately that they were in the area, that they were in the middle of this pursuit so that our rangers could notify Border Patrol that we had people and staff in the area. And again, the communication is so important so that we can get that information to Border Patrol. The other part of it is on our backcountry roads, often law enforcement, Border Patrol is either moving at high speeds either because they're in pursuit or they're moving to a different location. One of the things that we tell employees to look for are the dust plumes in the distance and if they see a dust plume is to find a place to pull off the road. They don't know whether there's a pursuit going on or whether it's just a normal activity going on but to always be assuming that there's potential for an encounter of some kind or that they need to get their vehicle off the road and get out of the way so that they're not in danger of being in an accident. Yeah, we're really vigilant on these roads. We go a little slower and make sure and stay at the inside of your side of the road because they're really only one lane, 15 mile an hour roads. They're chases are a real thing, more at night than during the day. Another thing to be aware of in this area especially, you wouldn't think of it being a riverine environment in the area that we're in very typical for people to drive across this river. So when you're in this area be cognizant of vehicles being driven across because the people driving them won't swerve out of the way to avoid you. Their main concern is to get their commodity into the interior of the United States and they'll do it by hook or by crook. They will take you out and there have been many instances where this has happened. They'll just drive right into traffic and when you're in this area you're traffic. Any time employees leave a vehicle in the field it could attract illegal immigrants or drug smugglers who need supplies or a ride. Here are some of the precautions employees take. Whenever you go out to the field you park your truck nose out so that means if you ever need to jump in the truck it's ready to go you're ready to get out you don't have to back up or anything like that you are ready to get out of that situation as quick as possible. We lock the truck every time we leave it for you know if we're more than like five inches away. We lock the truck. I suppose someone could take off with it and that is something you know we do think about but I can't spend my time worrying about whether or not my truck is going to get stolen. If I'm leaving the truck I obviously take everything I would possibly need with me out so we always have our communication stuff on us and we always have water and food for the day. It's about the best you can do. You can't prevent that from happening. You can just protect yourself by leaving it locked and just hoping nobody needs a truck that day. We tell all the staff lock the vehicle. We have security bars you know the steering wheel locks. We put those on. Some of our vehicles have disabling devices on them. So we do that. It's you know physical security for the truck. Well if I'm leaving the vehicle I never go anywhere more than maybe a couple hundred yards away from the vehicle unless I've got a map compass and a GPS and a pair of binoculars and my radio those are my lifelines along with water are essential for getting along out here. We try to lock everything up inside the vehicle like a lot of the engines they'll keep their two week packs on top of the vehicles or their you know overnight gear and we tell them to put everything either in one of the side boxes or lock it up in the front of the truck so those things don't get stolen on project work. We advise people not to leave a vehicle overnight. Be dropped off, have somebody come back and get you if possible. If a vehicle has to be left for an extended period of time we advise putting water outside the vehicle because more than likely that's what illegal aliens are going to be looking for and they're not likely to damage the vehicle if what they need is water. However be prepared for that vehicle maybe to be vandalized or not there on your return. Therefore you need a stash of water for yourself. Take adequate water, stash it somewhere else away from the vehicle if you're not carrying a radio, stash a radio there or something wipe out your footprints if you can but have some sort of contingency plan should you come back and the vehicle is gone. So many times people have come back and their truck is either gone or somebody's trying to steal it or hot wire it and those are interesting situations. What we tell the staff is look the government truck is not worth it. If somebody's come back to the truck somebody's trying to steal it you know go the other way. Just get on the handheld radio, call in get somebody to come get you but don't go in there trying to be a hero it's not worth the government truck it's not worth the risk. Also you don't come back to your vehicle blindly it's just like with the canyons. You find some place you look, look around see what's going on does it look like anybody has messed with anything if not then okay go ahead and approach it it's just a matter of being careful that's all. Without putting too much of a dramatic emphasis on it I also am always watching for escape routes. If I leave the vehicle and I come back there's people milling around the vehicle that I don't want to involve myself with where am I going to go from here and so I've usually always got myself a secondary route either get out to Ruby Road or get to a place where I can call dispatch. Experienced employees have found the best way to protect themselves is to avoid dangerous encounters altogether. They pay attention to the red flags that indicate illegal immigrants or drug smugglers are in the area and immediately leave. The kind of stuff we're going to see here would be the kind of warning flag you'd be wanting to pay attention to in the field it lets you know that people are using the area and they could be there now. Some of the things that we watch for when you come on a site like this is to be aware of things like can you hear voices nearby do you smell cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke anything of that nature food containers, a tuna can you can smell the tuna in the can you can see wet tuna juice in it you know that the people are not that far ahead of you and they may be very nearby you need to back off. You can run into a lot of different kinds of things a lot of burlap and other kinds of things that you know are associated with drug smuggling burlap and a rope and there's several other indicators that you may be in a high traffic area for drugs other places where you find mostly clothing and water bottle and food substances and that kind of thing you're going to be more probably associated with undocumented immigrants. There's different signs you look for it's like they put cans trail to mark their trail they'll put like soda cans or beer cans on the edge of the tree branch and anything like that you know it's a marker so you know that you're traveling or traversing near a path of theirs so you just be careful. Just being aware of your surroundings I patrol with the windows down and the air conditioner off that way I can hear smell and see if I'm out walking around I'm looking at what's going on around me I'm looking for anything that's out of place does that pile of rocks look like it just happened or does it look like somebody piled them up there if so why do you think they did a mining monument? Is it somebody's trail marker? What is it? You just stop and think about those things you don't dwell on these things but you notice them and you pay attention to them and they will give you clues as to the situation you're in. What we're looking at here is a well used and well known foot trail too in the park that has some recent foot traffic on it that our chief ranger pointed out here for us you can see a really well defined sneaker print here and a different tread over there it's a group of people that came through today sometime and this is an example of the kind of thing that we would be looking for in the back country when we're walking around what we do in a situation like this is to react same as if you see trash piles or other evidence is suddenly going at a higher level of alert assuming that there could be people very nearby and they could be trying to evade being seen and you could be possibly the enemy or the interdiction forces what I normally would do working out here is just kind of stop take a deep breath look around and start paying very close attention to all my senses can you hear anything do you hear people talking can you smell anything are there ravens in the area we've learned here that ravens have learned to key in on trash piles and large groups of migrants because they can scavenge some of the trash that they leave behind so if you see groups of ravens clustered in a tree or circling low maybe over large wash it might mean that there are people there or there's at least a trash site there animal activity usually ceases around the presence of humans if the birds all of a sudden go quiet or if birds all of a sudden fly up next to you just be aware that there's something out there that startled them away another thing is noise you can hear the vehicles as they drive across the foot traffic the foot traffic that's coming across will generally just try and avoid you they'll hide and they'll lay down in the bushes and try and avoid you be aware of your surroundings don't just be blindly walking down a trail keep your wits about you I advise people if it doesn't feel right it probably isn't if you get this uneasy feeling or the hair in the back of your neck it's time to get out and there's nothing out there worth risking your life or your well-being employees sometimes feel uncertain when they encounter people in the field because they just don't know who they are dealing with it could be just a visitor but it also could be an illegal immigrant a coyote or even a drug smuggler as a result they stay alert and keep an eye out for signs that people aren't who they appear to be it's really hard sometimes to decipher who's who out there distinguish between just an immigrant coming into this country for work versus somebody who's smuggling drugs unless they're carrying it on their back people even ask me at times well how do you know they're smugglers how do you know they're immigrants and to be honest I can't know that 100% I really can it's pretty certain when you see people with backpacks walking across the desert with water jugs that you've encountered immigrants but in terms of actual smugglers generally the coyotes blend right in with everybody else you won't know until you see someone driving a vehicle or until you see somebody up at the front of the group if you actually see the group where someone's leading a line of people that person is the coyote you don't know who the smuggler is at most times when we do capture a group that has a smuggler leading it he will do his best to blend in and before they even start many of the aliens that we've interviewed have told us he told me if I pointed him out as a smuggler that they would go and get my family and so they threaten them before they come across with bodily harm and harm to their families the people from this side of the border that are coming to pick up the material however can be very very dangerous you have to be very careful about dealing with them about getting hooked up with them they tend to pretend to be something else if they're out there usually they'll be trying to act like campers or act like bird watchers or something of this nature and you have to pay attention make sure that you're watching what's going on to try and determine whether the people that you're talking to are really what they say they are and I get a lot of reptile collectors out there and these two guys were trying to tell me they were reptile collectors but they had no collection bins they had no snake hooks they had absolutely none of the gear that would normally be associated with this so it was pretty clear to me that they weren't collecting reptiles if they had caught any they had no place to put them a situation like that is pretty obvious that they're pretending to be something that they're not and it's not our job to figure out what that is it's our job to recognize that this is a situation that is not necessarily what it appears to be and at that point it's beyond the scope of what we do deal with we'll turn it over to the people that do deal with that the person that's broken down on the vehicle that looks like they're the the mom would pop out to look at the birds and so forth because we had a lot of bird watching here we've had that stage several times as a stage breakdown where oh no they've already called somebody else and they're just waiting for them to show up and we don't need any help and what they are is to look out for the smuggler and if you look on the front seat a lot of times you're going to find out they've got three or four cell phones and maybe a two-way radio and possibly a lot of times a firearm right there in the front seat of the vehicle but you can't tell that from the real legitimate person that's broken down beside the road the things that I look for to raise my level of concern about a campsite first of all is their attitude are they nervous about you being there you look for either anything that is there that shouldn't be there an excessive number of containers anything like that things that would not normally be associated with camping or you look for something that's not there that should be there do they have tents do they have sleeping bags do they have the things that you would normally expect to find in a campsite is the campfire being used if it's not being used is there a charcoal grill or a gas stove around are they appropriately dressed they have proper shoes or a dead giveaway if they have city shoes on out there in the woods they're almost certainly not camping what type of vehicles are they you can tell when a vehicle belongs in the woods and when it's normally not supposed to be there what I do is just look at their cars because you're not going to have a especially down here a Cadillac Escalade camping you know in the middle of nowhere $50,000 car just for nothing on the woods and that happens when we're patrolling in Albuquerque Canyon I see a Corvette in there all you want a Corvette in the middle of the road you see like this car right here what's he doing here there's no hiking trails no nothing around here there's no drugs out of that canyon right there if you look if you pay attention on the fence you can see it's all bent up when they push it down to cross over right there you see that hole on this forest and on these districts you cannot ever let it slip out of your head because it has to be there every time you get on a forest road every time you see a vehicle parked on the side of the road you don't know whether it's some nice public person that pays their taxes or somebody's parked a vehicle there for some other reason despite all the precautions employees take to avoid encounters on occasion they still run into illegal immigrants, drug smugglers or drug stashes let's hear what they do to get out of these situations if you encounter illegal migrants in the backcountry I'll usually stop moving and start backing off but do things without even thinking about it like putting up your hands and showing that you're no threat and that you're no danger kind of universal sign language to back off just to try to defuse the situation until you can get it managed by calling in help or whatever is appropriate be cognizant of where you're at and what's around you because most of us do that anyway but here it's even more important we've had ranged people out riding come up on a drug load and so what do you do well you just push your horse on through and hope they forget about you because like it or not we try to make them feel like that we're not their enemy we're out here doing a job and then when you get to a point where it makes sense and you let somebody know you saw them but just work through them work around them, ignore them because we want them to know that we're not out here running enforcement on them my co-worker and I were working in a like a Bosque area a pretty heavily dense area with a lot of mesquite trees we were picking up trash in there because we knew there was a lot of trash in that one site and all of a sudden she wasn't near me any longer because we usually try to stay pretty close together when we're working just for safety and all of a sudden I heard male voices that were speaking Spanish and I was like I couldn't see her I couldn't see them, nothing and I was like oh goodness what am I supposed to do so we both have walkie-talkies and so I got on and I just asked her if everything was okay if she needed any more trash bags what was going on so we just kept talking because we wanted to increase our feeling of security and let them know that we had a way to communicate with each other but that was probably one of the most scary incidences just not being able to see people the favorite technique that I like to use to disengage from one of these questionable contacts is I will ask them what they have seen in the woods the common thing is quad traffic well you guys have been out here have you seen any quad traffic around normally I got a bunch of them out here we're trying to keep them under control it usually works pretty well to get the conversation around to things that you would expect us to be involved in and keep it at that level it never hurts to play dumb body language facial expression they expect us like I say to be friendly forest ranger you set up a legitimate excuse typically by asking them if they have seen this then that gives you a good reason to a reason that doesn't trigger any suspicion when you go ahead and leave if you come into contact with an illegal border crosser that you don't approach them when you find yourself in a situation whether it appears to be maybe illegal migrants or even drug smugglers you go the other way and then you call law enforcement as soon as possible and let them know we advise our employees that if they see drug smugglers or undocumented immigrants and so forth to get away from that particular environment before they actually call the situation in if they can if you come across stashed drugs or sometimes lost drugs part of a drug load might get lost in the dark the safe thing to do is to assume that the drug smugglers are nearby because that's very often likely to be the case it fits their method of operation is that when they rest during the day they hide in the shade during the daytime and they'll stash the drugs in a wash covered with brush or something so if you find something that even looks like it's been buried and may have been there for a long time it may have been there just a few hours and it's just the safest thing to do is to assume that they are nearby get out of the area and call it into law enforcement staff as soon as you can a difficult situation employees face when working along the border is coming across people who are in distress and need aid these people may need food, water or be suffering from heat stroke the question employees struggle with is whether or not to help if only is it the discretion of the employee there's no cookbook, there can't be a cookbook because every situation is completely different if you see somebody in the trail that's in just total distress you're going to offer them water some of our employees are EMTs so that they can provide medical care if it's really needed but you also have to be careful because sometimes people may act as if they're in distress and you don't know what that's a situation is that they're acting out something in general we advise people and we follow this advice ourselves is to have as little contact as possible with illegal immigrants it's hard to pass up these people and know that they're in distress or have a need of some sort but you never know if they're up to no good you don't know if the person trying to flag you down might be a decoy or someone that people have stopped for someone who's flagging them down and then they'll yank the person out of the car and take off in their vehicle it can get dangerous really quick and we just try to avoid those type of individuals whether it be UDAs or just people walking down like down this road here if we've fallen 5 or 6 people they may try waving you down and need some help call our dispatchers tell them hey I see 6 individuals are walking south on Ruby Road give them a GPS reading and go on your way and do your work it is not legal for us at any moment to transport anyone in the desert that's why we have the communications that we have the Border Patrol feels that it is very unsafe for us to do this because most likely they're going to be able to provide more on-site help than we would be able to because they have EMTs that are able to come out and do some more medically intense work than we could it's our nature as folks that work in public lands and public service to render aid no matter who it is and it's taking a really shift in our thinking away from that and it basically comes down to this we don't know who we're dealing with a significant number of people who are coming across have some criminal history whether that means that they're a threat I don't know but neither does the person that may decide to render aid let's give them the guidelines they need to get away from the area to keep them safe but then also to render aid for the people that need it by getting on the radio giving us a call noting what they're seeing and where they are and quite honestly we're going to probably be in better position to render true aid to these people fairly quickly anyway