Coyote Inc.

Barnett has many defenders, including Ray Borane, the mayor of Douglas. Borane has repeatedly asked for federal help to fight his immigration problem. In a recent letter to President Clinton, he wrote, "Your country is being invaded." For Larry Vance, who lives on the outskirts of town and heads a group of 234 county residents who want U.S. troops placed on the border, that invasion happens every night when he is woken up by immigrants racing through his property. Most evenings he scales a 25-foot tower behind his house to scan the brush with binoculars and call the Border Patrol when he spots illegals. A 43-year-old firebrand, he says that the fact his father was born in Mexico doesn't change his opinion that "the United States is full." In June, the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform flew him to Washington to testify before Congress about the problem. The immigrants "want to leave their poverty behind but try to bring their flag with them," he now says. "They want to change us."

They already have. In Douglas, 95 percent of the people trace their roots to Mexico; many themselves arrived illegally years ago and got U.S. citizenship under various amnesty programs. They are tired of migrants' hiding in their yards and crawling through the sewers in their attempts to dodge the Border Patrol. But they are also sympathetic. "These people come over here and they work in the fields picking lettuce, or washing dishes, doing things people here won't do," says 45-year-old Gilberto Maruffo, whose mother came to Douglas as an illegal immigrant in the 1940s. From his back porch at night, he can watch Mexicans scaling the fence that divides the border. He rarely calls the Border Patrol anymore and at times lets thirsty migrants drink from his hose before they move on. Says the mayor, Borane, whose father is from Mexico: "If you had anything other than a Hispanic majority, people would be marching in the streets."

Douglas, too, is living off the illegal-immigration business. "There is more money here now," says Maruffo, a furniture salesman who says some of his biggest customers live in Agua Prieta and pick out their furniture from videotapes he sends them. Last year there were seven taxis in Douglas. Today there are more than 50. The town's three towing services are doing fine business towing cars confiscated by the Border Patrol for hauling illegals. And at the Safeway grocery store, the butchers are running side businesses. One plans to refurbish five apartments he inherited in Agua Prieta. Two co-workers are nearing completion of 20 apartments in Douglas that they are hoping to rent out to new Border Patrol agents. Says Frank Padilla, one of the partners: "They're the only ones here who can pay $530 a month."

The coyotes, too, can thank the U.S. Border Patrol. Immigration officials say one aim of U.S. policy is to drive the price of crossing so high that migrants can't afford it. So far they have only succeeded in shifting the problem. In 1993, two thirds of the 1.25 million illegals caught along the Mexican border were in San Diego and El Paso. The next year, the government launched successful border crackdowns there, adding agents, floodlights, seismic sensors to detect footsteps and several miles of fence. This year, apprehensions around San Diego are at an 18-year low, more than 1.4 million illegals will be caught crossing into the United States from Mexico, and tiny Douglas will be the most popular spot to do it. Says Doug Massey, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied the coyote business: "We've created a more lucrative niche for the crime syndicates to operate in human smuggling."

So now the U.S. assault on illegal immigration has followed the coyotes to Arizona. The border there is being fortified with new agents and equipment. From the station in Douglas, a technician commands an infrared camera, tracking the migrants who move across his screen like characters in a videogame. He relays instructions to ground agents equipped with radios. "He's 10 feet to your left," the cameraman says, guiding an agent into a field to make an arrest. Later that night the camera detects a large group heading north, and the agents follow footprints until their flashlight beams hit human faces. There are 28 migrants trying to hide in the brush, packed together like a litter of puppies. Within two hours all are loaded into vans and sent through a revolving metal door back to Agua Prieta.

Therein lies the beauty of people trafficking. When drug smugglers are caught they usually go to prison and lose their shipment. When migrants are caught, the game merely starts over. "Drugs used to be No. 1. Now it's people," says a smuggler, who introduces himself as Victor. He says he is 41 and first crossed illegally into the United States in 1976. "I have a friend who got caught by the DEA for drug running. He's doing six years in prison. But we teach the people that if the border patrol catches us, don't say who the coyote is." Migrants rarely betray their guides, who are often under 18 anyway and immune from prosecution for people-smuggling in U.S. courts. To avoid attention, most sophisticated trafficking rings use newer cars and don't stuff them with migrants; U.S. authorities are also catching more white drivers. Though several smuggling rings have been broken up in the last two years, the bosses back in Mexico prove the most difficult to prosecute.