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Personal Safety of Federal Land-Management Field Employees Working Along the Mexican Border
Overall, the employees we interviewed felt that the problems associated with working near the border put them at risk of being hurt while carrying out their duties. Even though there have been no reported cases of physical harm to a field employee, there have been cases of serious injury to law enforcement officers. Many of the field employees we interviewed reported close calls and near misses. The general sense shared by the employees we interviewed was that it is "just a matter of time" before a field employee is hurt or killed.
Beyond this generalized sense of potential physical harm, a theme began to emerge from our interviews centered on the threat to employee morale stemming from their inability to do their job—something sociologists refer to as deflected missions and threatened work mandates. Because of the personal safety and health problems posed by drug smuggling and illegal immigration in this area, the employees described how they often can’t carry out work on trails, wildlife, fires, social services, and the other resource management tasks. In many cases, employees felt they had to avoid or simply neglect needed work in certain places near the border because of the perceived danger there.
Mission deflection creates what sociologists identify as a mandate problem for field employees. Their work means much more to them than merely making money. Employees feel deeply that by doing their jobs they are carrying out their moral mandate to do something good that needs to be done: caring for the land and serving people. When people working on the border hold these deep moral feelings about the importance of their work, but have difficulty carrying it out because of increasing dangers, their morale suffers. Many of the employees we spoke with were frustrated about not being able to do their jobs and reported feelings of stress and low morale.
In spite of the increasing dangers in the field, some of the employees we talked to are trying to do the jobs they feel need to be done. Many of them are taking risks and ignoring the potential danger to accomplish their mandate. They have developed what they call "rhino hide," which creates personal safety problems for themselves and for the agencies they work for.
Also, field employees report they are increasingly finding themselves involved in work that is law enforcement in nature. This concern was expressed both by field employees and Forest Protection Officers (FPO). For example, we heard about one instance when several employees were asked by a law enforcement officer to let the air out of the tires of a suspect vehicle. This frightened the employees because they feared the vehicle may belong to drug smugglers who could still be in the area. Some of the concern for FPOs is centered on their need to make "good host" and compliance contacts in the course of their duties. They are concerned they may contact a drug smuggler or illegal immigrant inadvertently, ending up in a dangerous situation that requires actions beyond either their training or their mission.
In an area where law enforcement resources are already stretched thin, officers are increasingly being called upon to accompany field personnel and FPOs while they perform their natural resource or firefighting duties. This situation could lead to more role confusion for field employees who may feel they are becoming increasingly involved in law enforcement activities.
Both mission deflection and low employee morale are organizational costs in terms of lost productivity and lack of accomplishment of goals. Moreover, safety issues arise when Federal employees feel pressure (personal or otherwise) to increase activities in potentially dangerous situations.
Beyond the personal and organizational costs associated with natural resource management in this increasingly dangerous environment, some widespread and long-term natural resource concerns are associated with the large numbers of people traveling in, and impacting, fragile desert ecosystems. The damage being done to the resource is an ever-present reality to the employees we interviewed, exacerbating the frustration they already feel because they are not able to do their job to their satisfaction.
Employees told us about several communication problems on the border. Radios and phones simply don’t work in many field locations. When cell phones do work, a call placed to law enforcement might connect you to an operator in Mexico.
Even when radios are working, many of the employees felt they were not being kept informed of the current dangers and enforcement activities on or near the border. The "constantly changing picture" in the "dynamic border work areas" makes it difficult for employees to know what is going on. To exacerbate the problem, the Border Patrol, Forest Service law enforcement, and other agency field workers have different kinds of radios, making it difficult to share information.
The culture of secrecy in law enforcement also hinders employees’ awareness. The locations of smuggling and interdiction activities are constantly changing along the border. Pointing to the problem of poor communications, one employee said, "We can get more information about what’s going on from local ranchers than from the patrol [Border Patrol]." In one instance, an employee talked about how the Border Patrol had "spiked" a road without the employee’s knowledge. The employee almost drove over the spikes, which would have disabled his vehicle. We also heard about numerous incidents where employees had been suddenly caught up in law enforcement pursuits. They had no warning of the pursuit and were run off the road or almost run over during high-speed chases between the Border Patrol and fleeing suspects.
Firefighters told us that they need to be better informed and aware of issues related to illegal activities on or near the border. Many of the supervisors we talked to want to raise the awareness of the firefighters coming into their region from other parts of the country. They also want these wildland firefighters to understand the unique problems they will face while fighting fire near the border.
There is a real possibility firefighters will encounter illegal immigrants or drug smugglers. Several firefighters told us that immigrants and smugglers have inadvertently started wildland fires when warming fires got out of control. When the initial attack crews arrived, the immigrants or smugglers were still there. In another case, several firefighters had to deal with a large number of illegal immigrants when their dozerline became a "highway" for immigrants traveling north. When firefighters encounter immigrants or smugglers, the firefighters may be distracted, losing the situational awareness they need to keep themselves and their crews safe.
Firefighters working near the border have to deal with the potential health risks associated with large amounts of trash or caches of drugs burning, conflicts in air space with helicopters assigned to the fire and helicopters used for law enforcement, and with arson fires being started to divert attention from illegal activities happening nearby. They also have to deal with clusters of illegal immigrant vehicles and with stolen packs and equipment.
To combat some of the safety problems associated with fighting wildland fires near the border, fire managers have requested law enforcement escorts on the fireline. Some managers also have implemented a policy of not fighting wildland fires between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when most of the illegal activity occurs.
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