The young men walks tactfully in a row. They are heading north, and it is urgent.
They are dressed in camouflage and carry heavy backpacks.
On their feet they have strange footwear: carpet samples, re-sewn into shoe bags. The purpose is to prevent the border guards from following their tracks in the desert sand.
A camera further up the route films these groups at a later time.
Now it is dawn.
VG has been granted access to footage from five cameras, hidden along a smuggling route that runs between the Mexican border and an area in Arizona, in the western United States.
Ten years of video clips have been compiled into one hour and 40 minutes.
The recording could become political explosives. He who has set up the cameras will show it to ex-president Donald Trump’s political allies.
Because there is someone who follows the camouflage-clad journey into the United States.
Hidden behind the hat brim is Jim Chilton (85).
– I have five such cameras, which are triggered by movement. In ten years I have counted 3,050 people who have passed through my ranch, on their way north from the border.
Who they are, Jim cannot know for sure, although he has a pretty clear idea.
In any case, the video images only tell part of a complicated story about the border:
Mexican drug cartels, armed militias, fierce border guards, compassionate helpers and desperate migrants.
Everyone meets at Jim’s ranch.
The ranch is located in the very south of Arizona, the state most famous for the Grand Canyon.
Now it is Arizona’s almost 600 kilometer long border with Mexico that is the most talked about.
Until recently, the small Texas town of Eagle Pass was at the center of what is being described as a massive border crisis.
When VG visited the area in November, hundreds of migrants crossed the border river, hoping to apply for asylum.
Since then, Texas has introduced highly controversial measures, which in practice set refugee rights aside.
The migrant flow has moved west. And onto Jim’s ranch.
– We are used to it that people are coming in from Mexico. The border has been a problem for us for years. It only gets worse, explains Jim.
In autumn 2018, he showed VG how to easily crawl under the border fence.
Jim demanded that then-President Donald Trump, for whom he had voted, keep his campaign promise and build a wall against Mexico.
The promise was eventually kept. Almost.
– When Joe Biden became president in January 2021, they still hadn’t finished building the Trump wall. Overnight, work was halted on Biden’s orders. Gaping holes were left, complains Jim.
Biden went to choice to pursue a more humane asylum policy. Now migrants are flooding in. 2023 was a record year for illegal immigration to the United States.
The president has tried to tighten with new border measures, but Trump has asked his Republican party colleagues to vote down the proposal.
Biden and the Democrats accuse the other party of turning a political coin on the crisis at the border.
The Republicans respond that Biden’s proposed measures are not strict enough.
Trump calls the migrants “snakes that poison our blood”. He hopes the crisis at the border will help him win the election.
Like four generations before him, Jim runs cattle. The herd of up to a thousand animals graze freely, on a huge area of 223 square kilometers.
The land is barren – the ranch is in the Sonoran desert. But the yellowing grass still contains nutrients.
For humans, the inhospitable landscape can be deadly. Last year three people lost their lives on Jim’s ranch, all migrants who had gotten lost.
– I have had 35 deaths here in total. Tragedies that could and should have been avoided, he says.
To prevent more deaths, he has built 29 drinking fountains with groundwater.
In recent years has Jim seen a change at the border.
– Before, almost everyone who crossed tried to stay hidden. Now most allow themselves to be apprehended by the border guards, since they think Biden will grant them asylum.
– There are two groups who are still hiding: There are those who know that their asylum application will be rejected, and those who transport drugs.
Those with camouflage clothing, bags on their backs and shoe bags on their feet are probably smugglers, Jim believes.
– The migrants stay by the wall. Those caught on my cameras work for the cartels, Jim believes.
The same is claimed by a disputed militia, which VG meets near the border wall.
Along the bumpy the cart road that runs from north to south through Jim’s ranch, a pickup truck is coming towards us.
Out jump Tim Foley, a sinewy 64-year-old with gray stubble and an automatic rifle, and Randon Berg (36), a huge teddy bear with black glasses and a thick beard.
– Three different cartels from Mexico are fighting to use the smuggling routes that go up the valley sides behind us here, claims Foley.
He is the leader of Arizona Border Recona group that claims it has 60 well-armed members patrolling the border.
– You can call us a civil defense, a militia or whatever you want, he explains.
Foley and Berg both have a background in the military, and say their main goal is deterrence.
The militia is not allowed to arrest those who cross the border illegally.
– If we don’t get them to turn around and go back to Mexico, then we will hold them until the border guard arrives.
Ranch owner Jim Chilton allows the militia to operate freely, as long as they don’t hurt anyone or break the law.
– This is not migration, it is an invasion. The border guards fail in their task. We have every right to defend ourselves, says Foley.
Berg shows VG some muddy shoe bags that alleged drug traffickers have thrown away along the way.
Nonprofits believes the militia is harassing migrants who have the right to seek asylum.
– The militia are cowards with weapons who want to play war with the cartels, but in reality they are scaring family groups who are looking for a better life, says Andy Winter (62).
He is active in a group called the Samaritans.
Like the Good Samaritan from the Bible, they help travelers in trouble, offering food, water and simple tents where migrants can rest.
The camp is right next to the wall.
– The migrants cross where there is a gap in the wall, and go down here, explains Winter.
When VG visits the camp, women and families with children have already been picked up by the border guard. A group of single men were not given a place on the buses.
Most are from Latin America, but some have traveled much further.
Gideon (34) has come from Rwanda, and has traveled via Turkey, to Panama, Nicaragua, and then up through Mexico.
In Mexico he had to pay the people smugglers.
– The cartel treated us very badly. It cost $2,000 up to the border, and $600 to cross. The last two days we didn’t get any food. They just drove through the desert, showed us a hole in the wall, and said “go in here”
Gideon won’t tell VG in detail about why he left Rwanda, he only says that he had a “security problem”.
– If you are wondering if I left because I wanted to see the USA, then the answer is no. I left my daughter, who will soon turn two, and my newborn son. Nobody does it voluntarily, he says.
Andy Winter from the Samaritans says that everyone who comes to the camp is exhausted.
– These are not fortune hunters. They are desperate people, he says.
Many have lost their lives in the desert. A stone’s throw from the wall, a red cross marks the spot where an anonymous migrant died.
Ranch Owner Jim supports that the Samaritans are active on the ranch.
– They have their hearts in the right place. I also feel sorry for the migrants. If I had been born in Guatemala, I would certainly try to come to the United States. But it has to happen in a legal way, not the madness we see today, explains Jim.
The cartels, Mexico’s version of the mafia, have expanded from smuggling drugs to smuggling people. It is easier and more profitable.
It’s the criminal enterprise Jim wants to end.
– A wall is not the final solution to the border problem, but walls work. If they are already built, of course.
Early next morning we drive back along the wall.
At the first hole in the wall, no one has crossed this night. But close to the next we can see a group of people standing neatly and decoratively along the road and waiting.
These are not camouflaged smugglers, but family groups of women, children and middle-aged men.
– We are from Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador and Guatemala. We have our children with us so the journey here was very difficult. Now we are waiting for the border guard, says a woman, who does not want to use her name.
For a short while after VG meets the migrants, the border guards in the Border Patrol arrive.
Despite because VG had applied for and received permission in advance, a furious border guard orders us to withdraw.
When we try to argue that we have the right to document what is happening, she puts her hand on the gun holster and says “last warning”.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) later writes to VG that it is encouraged “to report in advance about all activity in areas where illegal border crossings occur”.
“If you witness or suspect illegal activity”one must notify the authorities, not intervene, it is pointed out.
The Agency for Border Control warns private groups against taking matters into their own hands: “It can have catastrophic consequences for personal and public safety”.
It is pointed out that if private individuals carry out a “forced arrest”then it will be considered a criminal offence.
Offering transport to undocumented migrants is also not allowed, as it can “promote illegal entry”.
The migrants VG meet at the wall, are quickly lined up and placed on buses.
They are then driven away from the border wall, to a closed area where they are registered.
So, what does that mean? for Jim Chilton and his wife Sue that migrants and alleged drug traffickers are entering the United States via their ranch?
– It creates a constant uncertainty. We have had groups of men knocking on the door for water and food. We have given them that, but at the same time felt unsafe, says Sue (81).
– We have been called by the border guards and warned against driving through certain parts of the ranch, because two different cartels from Mexico shot at each other on our property, Jim elaborates.
From the bedroom, they have a view far beyond the ranch, and can see when strangers arrive.
Sue grew up in town. She has been married to Jim for 60 years, and says that she is anxious every time he leaves the house.
They hope that stricter border controls will give them peace of mind.
– I will travel to Washington DC and show Republicans in Congress the recordings you have received a copy of, says Jim.
The couple have a loaded rifle by the front door, and another by the bed. And it’s something Jim always has with him when he walks out the door from home.
His 40mm Smith & Wesson pistol.
– I have shown it, but never used it. And I hope it stays that way.
VG has shown the video clips at the top of this case to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
– Based on the video, CBP cannot determine whether these are migrants who are evading arrest, or smugglers who are bringing drugs into the United States, says spokesman John Mennell to VG.
– The border wall has a deterrent effect on illegal migration, and gives time and opportunity to apprehend. But both human traffickers and drug traffickers can find ways to get in anyway, says the spokesman.
– The cartels that control the smuggling of migrants and drugs are all part of the same network, he concludes.
Watch video: How easily VG crossed the border between USA and Mexico:
VG’s team was in Arizona, in the area along the border near the small town of Sasabe for two days. We had notified US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and obtained permission in advance, and had permission from ranch owner Jim Chilton to work in this area. Everyone interviewed/pictured has given permission.
