JUDY WOODRUFF: The number of apprehensions at the U.S./Mexico border have climbed steadily
this year. In May alone, agents documented more than 180,000 encounters with migrants.
Lorraine Rivera of Arizona Public Media spent a day recently with Customs and Border Patrol
on the ground and in the air during a sweep of the Sonoran Desert.
JACK PAINTER, Customs and Border Protection:
OK, it's 39 miles away. It's going to take us about 22 minutes to get there.
LORRAINE RIVERA: Jack Painter is an air interdiction agent with Customs and Border
Protection Air and Marine Operations. Today, he's been directed to help locate a group of
four people walking in the desert a few miles north of the border northwest of Nogales.
JACK PAINTER: Looks like an agent down in the cut right there.
MAN: I have got bodies right in front of me, right in front of me here.
LORRAINE RIVERA:
When we arrive, we find the group wearing camouflage, hiding under the trees.
Two agents take the group into custody, place them in handcuffs and walk them out of the canyon.
MAN: I got them all cuffed up. I'm going to stand by for my partner here.
MAN: OK, sounds good. Great job.
LORRAINE RIVERA: With this assignment complete, we are on to the next call.
JACK PAINTER: I will just be putting the coordinates in real quick.
LORRAINE RIVERA: Painter coordinates with operators in Tucson and agents below him.
JACK PAINTER: OK, this is going to be actually right close to the border.
LORRAINE RIVERA:
A group of eight also in camouflage. As the helicopter nears, the group scatters. They're
hard to spot from the air. Other agents on foot arrive as well as agents on horseback.
JACK PAINTER: I think they're pretty well told when the helicopter is in the area,
just don't move, because that really gives away their position.
LORRAINE RIVERA: Three of the eight are located and arrested. The five
others were last seen headed back toward Mexico.
But helping locate migrants is not the only mission for the CBP air unit.
Pilots respond to requests for emergency aid, too.
On the Tohono O'odham Nation, a man has called for help using WhatsApp on his phone.
JACK PAINTER: He's a good 20 miles north of the border.
So, he could have easily been one -- maybe on his second or even third day.
Yes, hey, we have got the 911 caller in sight. He's standing right now, but looks a little dizzy.
LORRAINE RIVERA:
With no easy place to land and low on fuel, Painter can't offer immediate help,
but he's marked coordinates so paramedics on the ground can find him more easily.
JACK PAINTER: We're going to have to break off for fuel,
but just want to let you know that he is in the coordinates.
LORRAINE RIVERA:
Over the Altar Valley, we see the vastness of the Sonoran Desert. During the summer, conditions can
be deadly. In the first few weeks of June, the Pima County medical examiner recorded 29 migrant
deaths. Hours after our flight, we learn that the 911 caller died, a 35-year-old man from Honduras.
His call had come into the Air Coordination Center...
WOMAN: OK, go ahead with the coordinates.
LORRAINE RIVERA: ... which links CBP partners alongside other federal, local and state agencies.
RYAN RICCUCCI, Acting Director, Arizona Air Coordination Center: All the dots are agents,
actually. We color-code them.
LORRAINE RIVERA: Ryan Riccucci serves as the acting director.
His team manages calls placed along the Arizona-Mexico border,
overseeing calls from cell towers and imagery off of surveillance systems.
RYAN RICCUCCI: So, we have a decision support system, so that, when a call comes in, it's,
where's the call? What condition are they in? Is it a rescue? Do they have battery life?
Is it urgent? What capabilities are up?
And then we have to do the pilot calculus, I call it, figuring out,
that bird, how much flight time does it have left? How long is it going to take to get to the area?
Because we don't want to send a bird to go somewhere just to turn around.
LORRAINE RIVERA: Every agent in the field has a smartphone connected to what's known
as the team awareness kit. The network expanded this past April, giving everyone
in this room and in the field a clear enough picture to send support where it's needed.
WOMAN: Are they, like, just on the other side of it?
MAN: Yes, they're on top of it.
WOMAN: OK.
LORRAINE RIVERA:
Improved technology, though, isn't always enough to save people from
the deadly elements in the desert, as shown with the Honduran man who died.
RYAN RICCUCCI: And I would say this is the worst-case scenario
of where the team did the best they could with what they had. So the call comes in,
and it's immediate. Do you have coordination? Do you have coordinates? No.
So that means you have 100,000 square meters to try to figure out.
The person on the phone wasn't quite lucid, so they weren't able to give good
information about where they were, what does the mountain look like.
LORRAINE RIVERA: That's where aircraft comes in yet again. This Air and Marine fleet is the
largest and busiest in the country, logging more than 10,000 flight hours every year.
This is also where Customs and Border Protection sends all of its Black Hawk
helicopters for maintenance. Director Mike Montgomery says surveillance systems aboard
helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft have saved countless lives over the years.
MIKE MONTGOMERY, Director, CBP Air and Marine Operations: Anywhere along that
corridor we could be called to. So we need the speed. The terrain is terrible.
So, some of those areas where Border Patrol agents work, it takes them an hour-and-a-half,
sometimes two hours just to get to their place where they need to start working.
From here, I can be an Ajo in 45 minutes and I can
be in the Bootheel of Douglas about the same amount of time.
LORRAINE RIVERA: Back on the ground, agent Jesus Vasavilbaso drives us along the newly
constructed border wall near the town of Sasabe. A man appears along the fence line.
JESUS VASAVILBASO, Customs and Border Protection: So he wants some water?
LORRAINE RIVERA: The man agrees to talk to us, as long as we don't show his face.
He says he's 38 years old and from the state of Guadalajara.
He tells me the smugglers stole his phone and most of his money. Vasavilbaso translates.
Vasavilbaso translates.
JESUS VASAVILBASO: There were a group of ten. And they paid them $1,000. But he heard a
helicopter and took off before they even crossed the border. So, he's trying to get some -- trying
to walk to the town, to the town of Sasabe, to try and get some help and try to go back home.
So, he said that it's not very manly for the coyote to leave him behind,
and that's he not going to attempt to come again.
LORRAINE RIVERA: On the ground and in the air,
one day with Tucson Sector offers a snapshot into the latest surge along the Southern border.
For the "PBS NewsHour, " I'm Lorraine Rivera along the U.S./Mexico border.