Despite the Border Patrol’s amazing arsenal of technology the task to close down a desert is still daunting. Sometimes it feels as if we are getting a rare opportunity to just hang out with a bunch of guys with really cool toys. But these toys are serious equipment for a very serious job.

Last night we stayed up with the night shift in the control room in Nogales, Arizona. The room is darkened and a handful of agents watch dozens of TV monitors filling an entire wall. Those screens are connected to hundreds of remote cameras that can turn to almost every inch of the Tucson sector – an area covering over 120 square miles south west of Tucson.

All night long Agent Sean watched as GPS coordinates popped up on screen. Each coordinate referenced a “hit” from an underground radar sensor. These are buried in secret locations just north of the US/Mexico border. They are so sensitive that even a coyote walking past can send an alert. Whenever a group of migrants, or worse, drug smugglers passes too close, the Border Patrol knows almost instantly.

The control room can track exactly where a group is crossing, but these locations may be deep into the wilderness – so they have a system of cameras that can be remotely controlled. When a sensor reports a hit, agents can turn the nearest camera to the spot to check exactly who might be crossing.

Our film crew marveled at the precision of cutting-edge infra-red cameras that can detect a person’s body heat from eight miles away. I found myself holding my breath all night as we watched the computer terminals for another hit. We were able to watch an entire chase and capture play out in black and white from eight miles away. We laughed with the agents when a huge “hit” turned out to be a herd of cows.

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Explorer: Border Wars premieres Wednesday, March 26 at 8p

Wow, I know that Mexico is another country,–Mexicans eat different food, wear different clothes and speak a different language– but I am still impressed with how a just crossing a tiny, man-made border line can change the world. Nogales, Mexico even smells different than Nogales, Arizona–I think it might be that they cook their foods in a different kind of oil than we do. And oh, how good that food tastes! I am delighting in the crazy little road-side taco stands, and the street vendors selling tasty treats through the car windows.

I am again thankful that my mom insisted that I learn Spanish because it is infinitely more fun to be able to understand all (okay, some) of the street noise. We drove for about three hours this morning and arrived in a dusty little town. Franc introduced us to the local priest who takes care of the permanent population as well as the countless migrants who pass through Altar each month. The padre took us on a back door tour of the town introducing us to both the seedy side, and the parish grandmothers. We met the local prostitutes, the backpack sellers, volunteers who run the local shelter, a fantastic restaurant and a newlywed couple who had just opened a breakfast burrito shop.

There was a strange feeling of hospitality and hostility throughout the town. Although we are here on a non-threatening mission of merely documenting what is going on, we are clearly and obviously outsiders. It is going to take some time to build trust. And many people in the town have good reason to be suspicious of nearly everyone. Wherever your sympathies lie, the migrants who attempt illegal entry are breaking U.S. laws. The penalties for being a pollero – a human smuggler – are even higher than those for merely crossing. But the crossing through the desert is extremely treacherous and there is much money to be made in smuggling.

There is a sense of desperation surrounding the migrants in Altar. If you are willing to leave your home, your family, your traditions and head north to live in secret scraping together a new life in a foreign country that at least officially doesn’t want you to come, I’d imagine that the reasons have to be pretty compelling. Then you add to that a journey across some of the harshest, hottest and driest deserts – nobody is coming to Altar for a vacation.

Surprisingly many were willing to openly share their stories with us anyway. We talked to, mostly, men who shared their hopes and plans. They told us they were caring for sick parents, hoping to their children school money, or looking for just a chance to earn an honest wage. Some of them seemed confused and slightly ashamed that their circumstances had driven them to seek a criminal solution. I got the sense that if there could have found a legal option, they would gladly have taken that option. All of them wanted to tell us that they were not coming to the U.S. to break laws or to hurt anyone, nor were they looking for a hand-out or to take advantage of the U.S. social services. While they are likely other people in town with less wholesome reasons for wanting to cross, every person we met told us that they only wanted work.

There were some very sketchy happenings on the street today. We are getting the feeling that someone is watching us very carefully. While I was walking down the street with our assistant cameraman, a man approached us and said “I hear you are staying in the Altar Inn.” We were both a little baffled because we didn’t remember meeting this man before. David tried to divert him and claimed that we couldn’t really remember the name of our hotel…it was somewhere over there, on the edge of town. But the man assured us that he knew exactly where we were staying. He wasn’t threatening us but he was letting us know that our actions are not going unnoticed.

Today we learned that most of the industry in Altar is controlled by one person who somehow is involved in virtually every step of the migrants’ journey. Almost everyone who is attempting to cross takes a van from Altar to the edge of the U.S., a town called Sasebe that is right at the border. This van must travel up a private toll road that is owned by this same person. We were eager to travel in a van so we could film the very start of the migrants’ journey. The priest had helped us to find a van driver who might be willing to let us take a trip with him.

Unfortunately our plans fell through and we were unable to make van journey. It was disappointing to not be able to film that part of the trip. David and I did manage to take some excellent still photos of a van being loaded on a side street in Altar. We were outside watching our gear while the other crew filmed an interview inside (and of course we grabbed a little excellent Mexican ice cream from a darling street vendor)–as we were sitting there we watched as person after person climbed into a van with “Altar – Sasebe” painted on the window. It seemed pretty clear what they were up to. We had heard that they packed 20 – 30 people into a stripped down 15-passenger van, but I still couldn’t believe how many people fit inside and drove off into the dust.

Despite the sense of lurking danger our trip to Altar was successful and informative, and gave us the opportunity to meet some truly lovely people. The priest invited us to film a service in the local church especially for migrants, blessing them as they head northward. The church was packed with hopeful people who had shared a few days of their lives with us.

For the past week we have been filming with the US Border Patrol in Tucson, Arizona trying to learn about their assignment to secure the southern border. It has been exhausting and enlightening. We have been working long hours, but the Border Patrol works even longer hours. The heat has been hovering in the 90s with blazing sun – and it is ONLY SEPTEMBER. I am so glad we didn’t decide to visit in August.

And we aren’t the only ones who suffer in the heat. Everyone who ventures outside is vulnerable. It isn’t the kind of place you want to visit without expert guides and , plenty of water – and in our case, I was very glad to have an air conditioned truck to escape the heat. But the people who work there, and the people who try to cross the Sonoran desert illegally don’t have that luxury

All of the Border Patrol agents have been welcoming and eager to share the day to day details of their job. And every single day I am more impressed by their tenacity and professionalism. They also have a really great stash of tools to help them. We jumped into one of their fleet of green striped jeeps and headed out with our guide for the next few days: Agent Danny McClafferty. An agent who has an especially unique assignment, McClafferty is a member of BORSTAR – Border Patrol Search Trauma And Rescue.

BORSTAR agents are responsible for patrolling the border as all agents are, but they are also specially trained in desert rescue. Most of them are licensed paramedics ready to treat and rescue anyone in danger in the desert. Soft-spoken Danny unlike my idea of the typical Border Agent as you could imagine. He is awesome and his compassion and commitment to his work are tangible. Danny’s family has been working for the Border Patrol for years and he learned tracking from his dad.

“The distances in the desert are unthinkable to anybody who lives within walking distance of at least 12 Starbucks.” - Korin Anderson

After driving for about 50 miles – the distances in the desert are unthinkable to anybody who lives within walking distance of at least 12 Starbucks - we finally reached our destination. We headed off-road – okay, it was probably officially a road, but it didn’t qualify as “road” in my experience—“dirt path” would be a generous overstatement. As we drove along, Danny leaned out the window and watched the dust at the side of the road. He encouraged us to watch along with him and explained that we were looking for either footprints – or perhaps the signs that footprints had been disguised. He explained that the crossers know exactly how the Border Patrol tracks – by driving east and west and hoping to cross their paths northward.

The easiest place to see footprints is wherever a group must cross a road. But avoiding detection at these spots appears to be a minor challenge for border crossers. They use a variety of techniques to confuse the agents tracking them. Sometimes they just walk backwards so they would appear to be walking south instead of north – but this doesn’t fool Danny. When you walk backwards your heel makes a deeper impression than when you walk forward. Other groups carry brooms, or twigs to sweep out their tracks. Once they caught a group with a battery powered leaf blower to BLOW out their tracks. These people seem determined to cross at all costs.

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