NBC Story Shows Border Reality

Thursday night's NBC Nightly News featured a strong story by Mark Potter that came straight from the just-the-facts-ma'am school of reporting. In less than three minutes Potter presented the familiar border-security assurances of the Border Patrol and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, then showed graphic footage from Arizona and Texas — some of it recorded by hidden cameras — that contradicted those assurances. San Juan, Texas, Police Chief Juan Gonzalez told Potter the influx of illegal immigrants into his community on the Rio Grande is happening "every single day." You can see Potter's story here And you can see the 2010 CIS video from the same Arizona border region here.

POTTER: For decades, the rugged mountains of Southern Arizona and the vast desert there have posed major challenges for those trying to secure the U.S.-Mexican border. But Commander Jeffrey Self of U.S. Customs and Border Protection says with new technology and more manpower now, security is much tighter.

SELF: We have a much more secure border than we did in years past. You can't argue the fact that the numbers tell the story.

POTTER: Those numbers show that apprehensions of immigrants crossing the Mexican border illegally have dropped dramatically, from 1.6 million in the year 2000 to about 357,000 last year.

NAPOLITANO: We have driven numbers of illegal migrants down to 40-year lows. Seizures of contraband are up.

POTTER: Most agree that effective steps have been taken to protect the U.S. cities along the border with high fences, 24-hour cameras, and thousands of agents. But for all the agreement about security in most of the border cities there is controversy and concern about the vast rural areas along the border, where many say it is neither safe nor secure. Gary Thrasher, an Arizona veterinarian, says where he works, the border is wide open.

THRASHER: The more they protect one region, the more it funnels people into the more remote areas.

POTTER: To see for ourselves, NBC News hid three motion-sensitive cameras in remote Southern Arizona. And recently 11 miles north of the border we recorded this scene, a group of smugglers on private U.S. ranchland carrying marijuana loads in broad daylight. Elsewhere we found other border crossers making their northbound treks at night. But even worse, border patrol agents say, is the situation in South Texas along the Rio Grande, where immigrant apprehensions are rising dramatically. By 65 percent last year and 55 percent this year as more people flee Central America. Deputies in Brooks County, Texas, say they seized a smuggler's cell phone loaded with this video allegedly showing immigrants being brought illegally into the United States.

GONZALEZ: We suspected that they had at least 25 to 30 people in here.

POTTER: Police Chief Juan Gonzalez says in San Juan, Texas, he's seeing a surge in immigrant smugglers setting up stash houses. If the undocumented immigrants have made it here that meant that they cross the border.

GONZALEZ: Sure.

POTTER: And is that happening regularly in your town?

GONZALEZ: Yes, every single day.

POTTER: So just how secure is the U.S. border? Many who live there say it varies depending on where you look.