Korin Anderson

Associate Producer, NGT

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.