Rustlers fought back by shooting smugglers.
As the violence escalated, rustlers also started killing more migrants who couldn't pay.
Peter Scanlon
A cross near Altar, the staging area for Mexicans
entering the United States, commemorates those who have died during the perilous journey.
Peter Scanlon
Luis Gallego cuts the membrillo into bricks to be sold in area markets.
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The result was that 2003 had the most smuggling-related violence of any year in Phoenix's history.
This same kind of violence hit northern Sonora. Robberies and killings spiked in Altar, along the road to Sasabe, and even in the valley towns of San Isidro, Magdalena and San Ignacio.
"There are many new people, bad people, in the area," Francisco Valencia says. "They come from all over. And they're up to no good."
The violence peaked with last year's stunning rolling gun battle between smugglers and rustlers along Interstate 10 just south of Phoenix. Four were killed, five were injured.
"That's when people realized something very serious had to be done," says Michael Turner, Rascon's boss and the new special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona.
Turner and Rascon say they will be taking down several larger organizations in the near future.
Unlike past federal immigration crackdowns, this one is permanent, Turner vows.
"We will continue to apply pressure on these organizations."
And so, the organizations will continue to morph their operations.
Smugglers who still operate in Phoenix are generally working with much smaller groups of migrants. Instead of large vans, smugglers are increasingly making several trips with small sedans to move migrants from the drop-off point to drop houses where they usually keep fewer migrants than in past years.
Or, federal agents say, smugglers are moving their drop houses to smaller towns such as Eloy or Safford, a fact that was confirmed by police in both cities.
Or, they're now dropping off the migrants in the desert outside Phoenix. From there, the smugglers call sponsors by cell phone, then go into town to get the wire transfer.
Or, they're now skipping Phoenix altogether. After picking up migrants in the desert north of Sasabe, many smugglers are driving to New Mexico or Los Angeles instead of Phoenix.
Or, they're completely moving their smuggling headquarters from Phoenix to other cities near the border.
In the past six months, for example, Houston has begun to suffer the fallout typical from human smuggling organizations -- murders, kidnappings and hostage situations.
So, Turner and Rascon soon will be teaching federal counterparts in Houston what they've learned from busting smugglers in Phoenix.
And the game will go on. And the U.S. government will tighten the border more, and the Mexicans will keep coming.
For as long as a struggling Third World country shares a border with the world's greatest superpower.
"As long as things are bad down there, the cycle will continue," Rascon admits. "They will come, we will try to stop them, they will go somewhere else, we will adjust.
"That's the sad truth. But that's the truth of the border."
E-mail robert.nelson@newtimes.com, or call 602-744-6549.
