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Personal Safety of Federal Land-Management Field Employees Working Along the Mexican Border
Drug smuggling includes a variety of activities related to the transport and distribution of drugs, across the Mexican border into the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has deemed this area a high-intensity drug trafficking area (HIDTA). Drug smugglers are moving large quantities of drugs across Federal lands (primarily marijuana transported by foot) and they also are using recreation sites to stage the distribution of drugs to other parts of the United States. Encounters with smugglers during the course of their normal field work—and the possible dangers associated with these encounters—is a concern for all the Federal employees we interviewed.
The major safety problem for most field employees was summed up by one employee who said, "The constant danger and worry expressed here is being in the wrong spot at the wrong time" (finding oneself caught up in the middle of drug smuggling operations). Field employees said they were constantly worrying about getting "bushwhacked" during surprise encounters with drug smugglers.
Employees repeatedly pointed out how drug smugglers are always considered potentially violent because they don’t want to be caught or lose their load of drugs. Employees recognize drug smugglers are desperate people—if they "lose their load, they lose their life or their family is punished." As one employee said, "You are always a threat to smugglers because you could turn them in." Drug smuggling operations are highly organized and smugglers want to avoid contacts that could jeopardize their operations. Field employees regard surprise contact with smugglers as a potentially hazardous situation and such contacts are of great concern.
The potential for these contacts is heightened because drug smugglers intentionally use remote locations for transport routes and frequently use developed recreation sites as transfer points. As one employee noted, drug smugglers are particularly dangerous because "they hide in plain sight," blending into the recreating public and using Federal facilities, such as campgrounds. Some drug smugglers have actually taken over campgrounds to use as transfer stations between the smugglers and dealers in the United States.
We heard stories of field employees who came across abandoned drug packs or vehicles containing drugs. The employees felt their lives would be threatened if drug lookouts saw them approaching a pack or vehicle.
Employees described the surprise encounters they might have with drug smugglers as abrupt, differing from the encounters described in Module 3 (Avoiding Trouble) of the Personal Safety in Remote Work Locations video series. This video teaches employees tactics they can use to avoid trouble when they encounter the public and potentially dangerous situations in remote work locations. In this training module, most of the encounters are controlled by employees because they have time to decide whether or not to interact with forest visitors. However, near the border, encounters with smugglers happen suddenly, surprising field employees. The suddenness gives workers little time to evaluate the situation and react appropriately. Most field workers we talked with simply want to disengage immediately.
Better yet, they would like to avoid such surprise encounters altogether.
Employees stressed repeatedly the most important technique for preventing and avoiding contact with drug smugglers is increasing the awareness of employees. This was seen by employees as the most critical requirement for avoiding unwanted encounters. Over and over, we heard employees saying that you need to be aware of your surroundings, especially the danger signs of illegal drug trafficking. For example, they suggested employees pay attention to the type of human tracks they see; tracks of different sizes suggest illegal immigrant traffic, while tracks that are all nearly the same size suggest a drug traffic route. They also suggest paying attention to the color of water jugs; white jugs indicate illegal immigration traffic and water jugs painted black (so smugglers can travel at night without detection) indicate drug trafficking routes.
Another way employees prevent abrupt encounters with smugglers is by intentionally making noise while they are in the field. This alerts the smugglers and gives them time to scatter, avoiding contact with employees. This practice is similar to that used by hikers who put bells on their hiking stick in the backcountry to avoid bear encounters. Another practice employees used was to flag their work sites. This let the smugglers know employees were in the area, giving them a chance to avoid an encounter. These examples of personal safety work practices are some of the types of material that could be included in a video training program.
Most of the field employees we interviewed felt they were always being watched by scouts or lookouts working for drug smugglers. This "creepy" feeling of being watched was mentioned by almost all employees we interviewed and was validated by law enforcement officers. The concerns employees expressed about this surveillance goes beyond the simple dislike and stress of being watched, or as some called it "living in a glass house."
The real concern was that these scouts were probably armed and dangerous, may have been on drugs, and were watching the area to make sure their drug activities were not interrupted by law enforcement or other drug cartels. Field employees fear making the wrong move, approaching the wrong person, or picking up or examining the wrong package or piece of trash. Scouts have shot at law enforcement officers, seriously injuring some of them. Employees we talked to felt that it was only a matter of time before one of them would be shot at as well.
There was considerable discussion about whether employees felt safer while wearing agency uniforms and driving agency vehicles, or whether they felt safer when it was not obvious that they were Federal or tribal employees. Some employees felt safer in marked vehicles and uniforms so long as they didn’t look too much like Border Patrol vehicles (Forest Service employees consistently want traditional green vehicles). By distinguishing themselves as Federal employees, but not law enforcement officers, these employees felt they reduced their chances of being perceived as a threat by drug smugglers and that they also reduced the chance that the Border Patrol might mistake them for drug smugglers.
Other employees no longer wear their uniforms because they think they will be mistaken for a Border Patrol officer or another law enforcement officer. They think the vehicles and uniforms of field employees look too much like the uniforms of law enforcement officers. As one employee observed, "You can’t tell the difference from 50 yards between my uniform and the uniform of an LEO [law enforcement officer]—you can’t see the gun from that distance." These employees wear plain clothes so they will look like a member of the public, who are not regarded as a threat by the smugglers.
This discussion about uniforms reveals the level of concern that field employees have for their safety as they go about their jobs. Employees are investing considerable personal energy coming up with strategies to keep themselves out of harm’s way. Employees consistently talked about the need to learn about new techniques that have helped other employees avoid trouble in the field.
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