COLUMBUS, N.M. — Frustrated by security crackdowns in Arizona, thousands of illegal immigrants and drug traffickers are flooding once-quiet New Mexico, making it the newest frontier in America's struggle to control its southern border.
Border Patrol agents who once caught handfuls of immigrants a day here now arrest 140 or 150 a night. Armed confrontations are increasing, high-speed chases have become routine and officials say they lack the resources to hold the line. At the same time, Mexican crime syndicates using two-way radios and sophisticated cellphones have American law enforcement under surveillance.
"They will call in our agent locations and spy on us at our base right here," said Colby Morgan, an intelligence officer operating out of the Deming Border Patrol Station, the largest in the state. "We haven't seen that before. They are getting at us from both sides of the border."
Palomas, Mexico, just across from Columbus, is a hub for smuggling cartels that view New Mexico as the easiest way to move people and drugs into the U.S.
And Deming, about 35 miles north, has become a distribution point.
The cartels' clout was evident last year when Palomas authorities tried to arrest a drug kingpin. Gunmen shot up the police station, torched the cars and sent eight officers and their families fleeing to Columbus in search of political asylum.
"We are a potential flashpoint on the border," said Rick Moody, patrol agent in charge at the Deming station. "There has been a gradual shift from Arizona to here. We have illegal vehicle crossings every day; fences are being torn down; our cars are getting hit with rocks. Ten years ago, this was one of the least active areas on the border; now it's the wild frontier."
In 2003, New Mexico arrested 48,633 illegal immigrants; in 2004 the number rose to 61,374. The Deming station saw apprehensions jump 26% last year, while the Lordsburg sector 60 miles west had a 109% increase. Border checkpoints like the one at Antelope Wells in far southwest New Mexico once averaged a single drug seizure a year. In 2004, it had seven. This month, border agents found 4,400 pounds of marijuana inside a pickup truck.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said the clampdown in Arizona was making his state "the preferred alternative for drug trafficking and human smuggling." He has requested more agents, vehicle barricades and cameras along the border. The Department of Homeland Security is looking into shifting resources to New Mexico.
"We have to increase staffing and security efforts all across the border," Bingaman said. "The idea that we can put our resources in one place and not see the problem move somewhere else is clearly wrong."
Others say such efforts are futile until there are better jobs in Mexico and stiffer penalties for those hiring illegal immigrants.
"New Mexico is the last frontier. The same cycle that occurred in Arizona is likely to repeat itself there," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Studies on Immigration at UC San Diego. "Supply and demand must be reduced; otherwise whatever we do is just a symbolic show of force."
For years, New Mexico's 180-mile border has been the least defended in the Southwest. Immigrants once preferred crossing into Texas and California, closer to major cities and transport centers. But crackdowns there funneled many into Arizona, now the busiest illegal crossing point in the nation, with 500,000 arrests last year. The state recently received $10 million in federal aid, unmanned surveillance aircraft and 200 new border and customs agents -- bringing its total to 2,000 for about 370 miles of border.
New Mexico has 425 agents to patrol 14,000 square miles. Much of the border is unmarked and open -- no fences, boundary lines or roads to show which side is which.
The Southwest New Mexico Border Security Task Force, a group of New Mexico and federal law enforcement agencies, issued a report in 2003 saying it didn't have the resources to adequately protect against drug dealers, illegal immigrants and "potentially weapons of mass destruction" crossing the border.
Border agents say they have run into heavily armed Mexican soldiers inside the U.S.
"I have found up to 10 Mexican soldiers in a Humvee on our side of the border," Moody said. "We don't know what they are doing here. They usually say they got lost. When that happens, we confront them and escort them back."
Some officials here think elements of the Mexican military are involved in drug smuggling.
The border is a quiet patchwork of farms, mountains and small desert towns. Federal agents depend on helicopters, underground sensors and camera towers to help cover the region.
Illegal immigrants often know the cameras' visual range, and cross where they can't be seen. Spotters sit atop hills in Mexico with cellphones to report which way cameras are pointing.
