we are letting too many people into our country just a few years ago news stories like these filled america's television screens immigration is not an entitlement it's a privilege america must take care of america first today u.s government has renewed its commitment to defend its southern border [Music] and it's costing american taxpayers billions of dollars is it working we traveled from california laredo texas to explore the conflicts that continue to plague the american border [Music] hello donna ed and donna tisdale used to live in peace and quiet here on their ranch east of san diego what goes on out here what goes on in washington is a whole different ballgame just past that high tower line that's mexico and where those pine trees are in the hill that is the border they say their property has become a freeway for drug smugglers and illegal border crossers last two or three days we've had 30 40 people through here 40 000 people came through my ranch how many people came across in the other 2 000 some miles all they want to do is get from point a to point b and they don't give a damn what they mess up in between radios they carry night vision i'd like to own a set of goggles like that myself you know so yeah i'd say they got some pretty high-tech stuff going we just started taking film of um what was going on and this is a tape of the illegals they came through here every morning for months and months for residents the pain and frustration of having one's land overrun by illegal aliens is still fresh and when you try and call law enforcement and it takes 45 minutes or three days to get a response you know it's it's a problem so our questions to the law enforcement agencies are you know what are we supposed to do how do we are we supposed to defend ourselves are we just supposed to let them you know run over and take control of our property and the basic answer was yeah but as frustrated as they are the situation is changing along the american border that's because the federal government has taken billions of dollars and aimed it right at the heart of the problem some right there are over the past five years the ins budget has nearly tripled to 3.8 billion dollars lots of the money has gone here this is what's called a port of entry it's the border crossing at san ysidro california just south of san diego it's ground zero for operation gatekeeper a government plan to crack down on illegal immigration and the drug trade along the southwest border there you go operation gatekeeper is a joint effort of the ins u.s customs and the national guard it's a plan designed to pour resources into the san diego border area stepping up searches like these we have marijuana in the back seat on this one oscar preciado is the director of the san ysidro port of entry some inspectors will look at certain vehicles because they've had they found drugs in those vehicles or they know the compartments customs inspectors pulled over this car after a canine detected hidden narcotics they use a lot of times air fresheners to make disguise the different smells that are in the car from the marijuana unable to pry open the back seat compartment inspectors suspect that smugglers created an electronic locking device to hide the marijuana they have like door hinges on here so you can try and put some sort of charge on those wires exactly and they'll try and jump it open the inspectors use jumper cables to short the car's electrical system and trip the lock just go ahead there you go oh my god it took us a few minutes to find the switch but they finally found it over 20 bundles of marijuana are discovered hidden behind the trap door does get the blood pumping when you find something like this it gets a good rush uh the inspectors how much is that do you think i would say what 50 pounds 100 pounds there's more than that heavy packaging it is it is and they do this day in and day out they do a great job here great job while custom stops contraband the ins stops people from entering the us illegally since operation gatekeeper began in 1994 the number of apprehensions in the san diego region has come down dramatically i think that the objective reality in areas of the border that i personally visited is very different from what it was a few years ago michael bromwich is the inspector general for the u.s department of justice there are lots more border patrol agents along there they are very visibly deployed you can see their cars you know strategically located along the way and that's exactly what people who might be thinking of coming across the border see we're loving it we you know we're ecstatic border patrol agents like robert gilbert say that all you have to do is spend the day with them to see how much things have slowed down since gatekeeper was initiated through the resources we've been able to take control and apprehensions have indicated such as they've gone down i'm going to show you a couple videos about what used to happen here this was the scene along the southern border during the late 1980s and early 1990s prior to october of 1994 as this video indicates here the border was completely out of control it was a border in chaos that's changed dramatically now and we've got control of the borders but some san diego residents like bob maupin disagree the people that come across there are already breaking the law they've broken into the country maupin says he's just a good american upholding the law and defending his property from illegal border crossers out here in the eastern stretches of san diego county maupin says operation gatekeeper isn't working in my opinion they don't want these people caught if they did they would do the things the way they used to and catch them our country is being invaded and the invasion is aided and abetted by our government while maupin may be far from the halls of power some in washington are also saying that the ins isn't doing enough we have the most porous borders of any industrialized country in the world lamar smith is the republican chair of the house immigration subcommittee as far as illegal immigration goes we continue to set records every day every month every year while the tide of illegal crossings in san diego appears to have slowed down the reason for the crossings has not higher wages and money to be made from smuggling drugs are the main draw those coming across the border face gatekeepers high-tech defenses including planes night vision goggles and infrared scopes while money and manpower are making a dent in illegal immigration in san diego the challenge now is to control the nearly 2 000 miles of rugged terrain along the rest of the southwest border that takes the military and high-tech tools that when we return [Music] okay this is your the border patrol has been spending millions of dollars in taxpayers money and much of it goes into military high-tech tools it all comes out of this right here you just control it just like you were playing a video game you control that and it spins it around tilts it up and down focuses it in on anything you want right there is this bronco that we were just looking at right with your camera you can focus right in on them you can almost read the decals on the truck that is wild the use of military hardware and troops on the border has been controversial for many who live and work in border towns things came to a head in 1997 when u.s marines shot and killed a mexican-american teenager in redford texas the military says the eighteen-year-old hernandez fired twice on the four-man unit which was watching a stretch of the rio grande at redford texas with drug traffickers our friend and son went to the grave and the marines went back to their activities and i think that should be should be some kind of punishment soldiers are trained to do one particular thing defend this country up to and including killing others to do so javier becerra is the chair of the congressional hispanic caucus border patrol officers are trained to kill if possible as well but under different circumstances we should not be sending military personnel to do the work of civilian police until we are at war with that neighboring country to the south i don't see why we need to send our military incidents like the redford shooting have some locals worried that militarizing the border may lead to another tragedy here in hakuma california a tiny border town east of san diego residents are outspoken about the influx of border patrol agents in their area as we are standing here at this moment there's a hundred guys hiding in the bushes out there somewhere looking for mexicans bob mitchell says that jacumba is under siege there are more law enforcement personnel in this hamlet per capita than in bosnia border patrol is more invasive than the than the mexican people themselves geez i bet 20 come in and 20 leave you know there's not ever probably one border patrol agent that stays out here that long so they don't know the people that are around here we don't want to be harassed by the border patrol either because we pay taxes out here we pay their salary and they abuse their power the store on the south side of the street is closed they closed about a month ago and the store on the east side of the street is for sale and i really think their business is suffering because people aren't coming over and buying things like they used to there has long been a symbiotic relationship between hakumba and hakame a mexican village just over the border it's important that the local people are allowed to cross and and keep their community connected come on kirk gillam is an american building contractor who has homes in both hakumba and hakame this truck actually used to be in aquaman when i first came down here we're in the back of kirk's 1952 truck and uh he's driving us over to the border to see if we can walk across and go to hakame i a lot of times walk through right here because i can i don't have to even lift my leg it just step right through you just crossed into mexico yeah i did and that's against the law isn't it i'm not sure where you going smitty's in mexico okay we're gonna slip through here and now i'm entirely in mexico yep all right international border incident right here yep does it feel different being in mexico oh yeah it always does it feels a little bit more rural what's it say up here on this wall um it has to do with going north and um not to forget the people back home and what you're seeing here is america on the other side we hiked over to hakame [Music] here kirk introduced us to the local store owner he's saying that before they put up the fences you know the the border patrol was always there they're there now and they're there before but he's saying we're putting a wall up whereas at the same time in berlin they're tearing it down and um it's just such a contradiction you can only stop people so much if people are willing to cross an ocean or climb mountains to get here a fence or a ditch is not going to stop them we're always going to have people who yearn to be in the united states of america 85 miles to the west of hakame is tijuana mexico there jose bravo a local activist took me to a place called friendship park friendship park symbolizes the long-standing relationship between the u.s and mexico but it was split in two with the construction of this fence here's the monument see the monument right there it split in half now you only have half half the friendship you had before so you know when you look through that you're not welcome there that's right at least some people aren't welcome some people like some people like immigrants of color while sammy was with jose bravo in mexico lauren and i visited the american side of the same fence with agent gilbert down where the fence meets the pacific ocean we came across a group of mexican teenagers their interaction with agent gilbert was surprisingly friendly there seemed to be a mutual understanding between the american agent and the people on the other side of the fence hola camera and i handed our camera to the fence here's what they shot as the sun sets along the border in campo california border patrol activity intensifies the agents use a system known as cutting and tracking to detect and locate illegal border crossers if you see a footprint does that mean it's fairly it's fairly new because there's constant traffic this agent describes how footprints can lead to someone's apprehension um if i can put my light down here yeah that's that's obviously fresh and it's over the tire track of one of the agents that just came through this area so you know he just came through here five minutes ago you have a good indication of time on this crossing right here she'll see the aliens will cross and they'll do a little brush out or they have some styrofoam and styrofoam shoes and they'll actually put them around and that's what they'll use to walk on and when the border is like this nice soft dirt sometimes you can't even tell once someone is apprehended they're taken here by the border patrol to be processed through ident the biometric identification system which records and files people's fingerprints and photos miles away checkpoints are set up to catch people who have escaped earlier detection nicer anything in the back here great thank you generally speaking what are you looking for make eye contact with the drivers look at their face how they're reacting to the checkpoint he wants to check this one out it's got a notch in the card every once in a while they'll try to run a load through and if there's a case that won't hold up in court they'll end up getting turned loose but they'll notch the card to let somebody else know that it's been a prior tracking patrols ground sensors all these become much harder to deploy when you get to the wide open spaces further to the east when we return nogales arizona a notorious drug through way and the measures the government is taking to try and shut it down [Music] we're at 500 feet above arizona's mountainous terrain below is the town of nogales 65 miles south of tucson richard gorman is with the drug enforcement agency he says that only from the air can you understand just how dangerous and desolate this portion of the u.s mexican border really is there's a vast area that is virtually [Music] we're unable to patrol 70 of the drugs that are smuggled into the u.s are brought across the southwest border that makes drug interdiction a priority along these hard to patrol stretches nogales is known as a major drug thruway not only because the terrain impedes patrols but also because drainage tunnels offer drug smugglers and illegal crossers a pathway from mexico to the united states this is the marley tunnel we wanted to shoot in the tunnels but border patrol agent greg karupas warned us that they were highly contaminated you don't want to go in there believe me you don't because you never know what you'll take back i've seen it glow at night yes i'm not kidding it's we'll catch anywhere between probably 30 to 50 people coming out of these tunnels tonight to understand how the tunnels thwart law enforcement sammy met up with the mexican border police known as grupo beta just put on a bulletproof vest here apparently it's quite dangerous where we're going these tunnels are dangerous because they're used by armed smugglers i saw grim reminders of people who had risked their lives to come to the u.s we came across a wallet which beta agents said was probably stolen by a bandit from someone attempting to cross seeing this picture made me wonder what had become of this family suddenly the beta agents heard voices and ran after them we came across this man huddled in the darkness he told veda agents he paid a smuggler to take him to the united states but instead he had been robbed at knifepoint and left to fend for himself i left the tunnels with a better understanding of the horrors awaiting those who dare to enter in search of a better life while sammy was in the tunnels with grupo beta i was in nogales arizona with eddie a narcotics agent eddie is watching a van he suspects is being used to smuggle narcotics so tell me why is this vehicle suspicious what is it that you guys see in this blue vein this man they've already confirmed that it does have a compartment or a trap door that they can load it from underneath so you're basically saying that there's somebody in the storm drain who's handing the marijuana through the bottom of the van so it looks like nothing's happening with the van but on the outside yeah look i'll show you what they mean by storm drains where the bundles are coming out these storm drains are used by smugglers to sneak drugs into the u.s this is the van that they had yesterday they took the seats out this is the hole that they were bringing the bundles in underneath they had to have somebody in here setting them up or because there's no way that can reach from the storm drain through the whole top somewhere unless you were michael jordan bounced it off the wall or something like that eddie showed me the marijuana confiscated from the van these are the bundles that came out of that van yesterday he points out how the drugs are packaged to slip easily through the narrow storm drains it's easy money you come across a border pack you pack a 40 50 pound load but carry it two three miles to a car that's that's a quick 500 bucks you know for somebody who lives in mexico 500 goes they can make that stretch recent reports have criticized the mexican government for not stopping drugs on their side of the border but in washington there's a debate about whether sealing the border is the way to win the war on drugs i don't think the way to beat the war or winning the war on drugs is to say you're going to try to steal the border that's just impossible the way to win the war on drugs is to stop the demand from this in this country from continuing to grow so that way we can attack the supply that comes in clearly i think we need even more personnel more additional resources than we have right now committed to the border 70 of all illegal drugs entering the united states comes across our southern border and you just have to have a better border security if you're going to stop the drugs and if you're going to get a handle on the number of people coming in illegally as well the whole issue of drug big issue but please don't believe that the majority of the folks are coming in without documents are mules carrying drugs most of them are not most coming to work we're seeing more family units not just you know the papa coming over here to earn money for for mama and the babies back at home but the whole unit these families were caught coming out of the tunnels they're going all over the place they end up uh telling us where they're going they said well south carolina what were you going to do in south carolina well i was going to go pick some tobacco leaves the illegal crossers were taken to a detention center where they were quickly processed being fingerprinted and photographed however does not seem to create much of a deterrent within an hour they are loaded into a van and escorted back to mexico how many times can people come across in arizona before they are prosecuted well at this station there is a threshold between 10 and 15. why so many times if we prosecuted everybody for their illegal entry which is against the law the whole system the jail the housing of the aliens would be clogged up in one day within tucson sector as i watched a dozen men walk back over to mexico i wondered would they try again well we may see him in five minutes we may never ever see him again you never know why do mexican migrants cross the border in search of work so does moving jobs south of the border a result of the north american free trade agreement make a difference we'll see how nafta has created new problems for customs and ins in places like laredo texas when we returned it had been two weeks since we began our journey along the american border our last stop was laredo texas thousand trucks a day cross from mexico to the us through laredo traffic fueled by the free trade treaty known as nafta increased traffic means increased problems they're trying to bring the narcotics through and we're trying to catch them so you know it's basically a game that we're playing here jean garza is the chief canine inspector at the laredo port of entry hey down starts officer gets here picks up and that's where settle his dog goes to work they're very useful animal very useful tool that custom utilizes it it saves a lot of time for us here we cannot inspect every truck the percentage of trucks that we inspect is is you know only a small portion of the whole representative number that comes in we've seen about a 30 increase in truck traffic and we've seen that since nafta the north american free trade agreement reduced taxes and tariffs making mexico an attractive place for u.s businesses to manufacture goods but the new traffic generated by increased trade has created enormous pressures on the ports of entry you can't have trucks hanging around for hours before they can cross the border demetrius papa dimitrio is with the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington d.c you cannot have people who need to come and do their business in the united states either getting hassled or for that matter having to wait for a long time to cross the borders many companies exporting goods from mexico to the u.s face delays at the ports of entry gallium lord manufactures pants for designers like ralph lauren and calvin klein this is just a plant that does all the little small parts on the pant zippers and belt loops and what have you ron pinkerton is the plant's executive vice president math is good for our company nafta it's good for i think for the us i mean i've seen it work and i'm part of the process and it's working good it's a lot of fun yes it is but the thousands of trucks bringing merchandise from mexico into the united states cause problems for customs officials which ones are being used legitimately and which ones are being used to smuggle drugs where are you finding drugs and the trucks we're finding it we're finding uh in gas tank we find it in the in the cab area of the truck and the roof of the trailer and the sides of the trailer on the floor of the trailer in the in the in the tires you know i i don't want to say i've seen it all but um i think the probably the one that concerns me the most is when we see people that have the drugs in their stomach and they're trying to bring it through that way this is the largest facility on the southern border for cargo processing leticia maureen is the port director for u.s customs in laredo we have a facility here where we can get up on the catwalk and examine roofs of trailers inspectors were up here working a catwalk they saw something wrong with the way the roof looks so what they did was they used a drill and they went and they drilled it from the inside and they found the cocaine so it was a great seizure two thousand pounds what we're looking at is almost 91 pounds of cocaine this cocaine was found floating in the gas tank of yet another vehicle a canine by the name of rex inspected his vehicle and alerted to the gas tank inspectors found about 90 and a half pounds of cocaine what would you estimate the street worth of this is any idea i think the value that was put on there was in excess of four million dollars four million dollars that's a lot of money even trains are fair game for smugglers and border crossers agent tom lozano took us on a search of the laredo train yard find somebody for me see that door on the outside over there they'll go on the other ladder like this on the other side it'll just climb up the vehicles are assembled in mexico and the people could already be smuggled inside of the trailer smugglers have bolt cutters and whatnot and they break the seals on the car carriers and they'll load people in there for a certain amount of money it's almost like the whole wild west where people used to track the indians down et cetera we heard that there's a controversy in this small town of rio bravo texas is it not sufficient to park a border patrol vehicle here and maybe over at the end of the street instead of building this road along the river cindy cano an attorney for the mexican-american legal defense and education fund is concerned that the road is part of a larger plan to militarize the border so you think that this is a militarization of the border oh yeah and you know like i said i think it's very naive of them to say oh they're just here to build right now when in fact they're building an infrastructure for future use she told me about an army-based camp being constructed nearby it appears that they've built permanent barracks they've built 10 helipads which has caused a great amount of concern among a lot of the citizens here because 10 helipads seems to suggest that the military is going to be coming in with a lot more soldiers in the future so the fear about the military working with border patrol is that the military comes in they're not trained to deal with people coming across the border and so it can get things right right and if there were to be you know any kind of covert patrolling out here the residents wouldn't they wouldn't know about it until some tragedy were to occur we visited the army base camp that kano told us about to hear the military side of the story these soldiers here to do a specific mission for us and that's to upgrade and improve these roads border patrol agent george gannow explained the need for better roads by the time my agents get out here and get on these tracks whatever we're following at that point we don't know if it's illegal agents or narcotics they're already a good eight to 14 hours ahead of my agents if you have these clean roads these nice fence lines here so that gives us faster access to those tracks than those people come on those roads would normally be built in haiti honduras bosnia someplace else now the united states and the local citizens begin to return all their tax dollars so the military here is not working to patrol the border with border patrol just the fact that they are military coming to the border to do something automatically the red flag goes up and they say oh they're militarizing the border when in fact we're not doing that all we're doing is building the roads but why then were 10 helipads being constructed the helicopters are the ones from the army or whoever's down here doing training and that's that's basically what this facility is for as far as i know it's just for more units to come down here and do training missions while it's uncertain what the army's long-term plans for the area are some lifelong residents want the military on the border bud natus is a cattle rancher i'd like to see the army station on the river all the time i mean we we have the army what are we paying them for to protect our country bud took me to the rio grande which borders the edge of his property it's not even knee-deep here actually right now most of it you could walk across stepping on rocks and not even get your feet wet there's some pretty fresh tracks here looking they're not even dried so would you if they if they said can we put up a fence on your property would you you left them yeah i'd let them yeah let them build a big one [Music] you want a ride sure you ride pretty good um it's been a while but i'd love to come out with you yeah this ranch is like any other business it's the way we make a living it's our livelihood and when they come in and destroy it and still all of the stuff we have to use to make our living with it it upsets you the problem with illegal border crossings has gotten so bad that bud is planning on leaving the area over the last four to six years it's been getting you know progressively worse all the time you know and you finally just decided you couldn't take it anymore well you know it's time to move on sometimes if this place sells i won't have to put up with this anymore what's it make you feel about believing all this makes me feel happy relieved i feel sorry for the people that still have to stay here and live on the river though whether or not the government's future plans include a militarization of the border one thing is clear the battle in washington over how to spend u s tax dollars rages on when we come back we'll take a closer look at the prospects for u s border policy in the future over the past four years billions of dollars have been spent trying to control the southwest border citizenship for three weeks we journeyed there we saw drugs being seized from vehicles there's one witness border patrol agents capture and process illegal crossers and watched as families risked everything to come to the us i got a full boat but we wanted to know more about why the migrants were willing to take this risk we sell ourselves as the best country in the world so long as we're the best country in the world there will be people who wish to come to our country one way or the other immigration from mexico goes back over a hundred years and as with most immigration to the united states it was immigration that we solicited come on over we need help whether it's in agriculture in the low wage services and indeed mexicans came and in the past 20 years we have simply let it flower many migrants cross into the u.s through tijuana a prosperous mexican city just 20 miles south of san diego people are coming because they're 110 in a day versus a dollar in a day and that's not too difficult to do in this country to earn ten dollars in a day there are unscrupulous folks in this country who are willing to hire people because they can pay them less and as a result they can make a profit what we should not do is demonize undocumented workers in a lazy sort of a way we move from open immigration to closing the doors then back to open immigration then closing the doors again but were the ins stepped up efforts to slow illegal immigration being felt in tijuana do you notice that people are still coming across or are they staying here more oh this okay the the people is staying in tijuana because can cross here do people want to cross yes they want to but it's not as easy as it used to be many people from the interior of mexico don't know about the build up at the border after being caught in the u.s and released in tijuana many are penniless and wind up at places like this casa del migrante is a mission for migrants in tijuana mexico we spoke to father fansellato who founded the shelter 11 years ago we've provided food help and care to more than 110 000 migrants since we began migrants come to tijuana because it's the doorway to the first world vista the men here envisioned the united states as the promised land they believe that the streets in california are paved with gold i need money and the cross line is more money the border patrol is tough right now it's hard to get past the soldiers to the other side of the border roy coyle is an american volunteer at casa del grante the mexican migrant in the united states is dehumanized and we need to give him back his humanity these people do a lot for our country and we should be thankful for them and and i'm not saying open the floodgates i i don't know what the answer is but the answer is not what we have right now just the united states back in washington we asked the ins whether they considered their current border policy a success dr robert bach is in charge of policy and planning for the ins what we did is we stopped the illegal traffic the chaos the frontier justice that that actually drove businesses away we changed that and attracted people to live in the area to move back and forth legally in a peaceful way and to prosper oh we're trying to survive out here uh cattle's getting out and stuff like that someone needs to answer for all that besides uh you know who do you blame for all that you don't blame illegal immigration you bought you you know you blame that on washington or your local local people who you blame that on you know it got like awards on there for three years literally like war zone we actually looked at other places and said you know why should we abandon our property in our land in our country and walk away from a problem instead of staying and fighting that's what's wrong with the country people don't fight for their rights or what they believe in we decided to stand and fight and we have countries i do not believe that three or four years or five years from now will be willing to spend three billion dollars to have a border patrol that is going to be better equipped than practically any other army or armed forces anywhere else in the world it is not really the best way to spend hundreds of millions of dollars ins was funded for 3.8 billion dollars for a fiscal year 1998 um and they've asked for 4.2 billion for 19.99 and so far um every year they've gotten exactly what they've asked for well i'm not going to say write a blank check but within reason congress can certainly do more in this case you're just talking about perhaps another one or two billion dollars to really get a firm control on the border situation there's no way you could stop them all i mean you just don't have to hold hands up and down the river aliens can literally cross any place they want to when i was growing up and you know working on ranches and living on ranches the worst thing you could do would be turn in an alien but now the way i feel i won't even give one a glass of water we trusted them we trusted them more than we trusted the local people because when we hired them you know they had an honor and and they'd take care of the place but these that come across now they're just they're they're completely different they're always cutting their fences and you know bringing dope and stuff across and then they come and they they stole their pickup once and they stole the neighbors horses i believe it's going to get a lot worse we haven't seen the worst yet it's no easy task to leave your country whether it's in mexico or poland or thailand and try to make a new home it's even more difficult if you're trying to make that home and the host country has not accepted you because you haven't come in the right way what is the primary reason do you find basing your arrests and things that people are crossing here 98 of the people that we catch are genuinely good people that are just trying to sustain a life the united states shouldn't provide everything for everybody i think you should provide for people who are illegally here you ever formulate relationships with these kids to hang out at the border all the time um at one time this entire area would be full of vendors you could buy tacos coconuts coconut milk and all that through the fence and so you would get to know some of the people um just because you'd see them every day and the change has been like night and day i'm a man of both sides i was born in this country where i'm standing in and i live in the other country on the other side of that fence and to me it's just a travesty that this has to occur it's it's changed in the last couple years i mean it was a much easier type of situation much more relaxed there's a there's a tension here now there was a lot of people who used to cross who don't come near the border anymore border is a joint endeavor it joins two countries as much as it separates the countries it is time for the immigration service now to be talking to people in the state department in the commerce department in the treasury department and say collectively what is the conversation that we might engage mexico on about alternative ways to managing undocumented immigration [Applause] [Music] hello you