Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless,
Speaker 1: severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to
Speaker 1: Hunt E podcast, you can't predict anything presented by First Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to
Speaker 1: technical outerwear. For every hunt, first Light, go farther, stay longer. Alright, everybody,
Speaker 1: we got the room packed with Apparently it's packed with
Speaker 1: pistol pack and bagpipe players. I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: guys play bagpipes, but you guys, I'm assuming you packed
Speaker 1: pistols at work. Yes, sir, pistol packing bags players. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want you to douce yourselves. My name is rich Fortunate.
Speaker 1: I'm the acting Chief Patrol Agent to have their sector
Speaker 1: Border Patrol Sector. Want to say that real slow? Richard
Speaker 1: Fortunado the acting Chief Patrol Agent of the Haver Sector
Speaker 1: Border Patrol Sector. So your patroling the northern border I'm patrolling. Actually,
Speaker 1: the a O R for Haver Sector is is Montana,
Speaker 1: east of the Continental Divide, Idaho, east of the Continental Divide, Utah, Colorado,
Speaker 1: and Wyoming. So we were looking. We do work throughout
Speaker 1: that entire area. Colorado. I hope you catch them before
Speaker 1: they coming from the north, I imagine. Well, yeah, so
Speaker 1: the stuff that we try to do down in the states,
Speaker 1: in Wyoming, in Colorado is is more of a task
Speaker 1: force working with other law enforcement partners and working on
Speaker 1: that type of traffic the borders. The border next to
Speaker 1: stuff is obviously in Montana. God, yeah, I got a
Speaker 1: bunch of questions about the northern border. I've been the
Speaker 1: Quiet it's the I don't know the Quiet border. Wow,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't see it's quiet. I would say that it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's different, right, So it's it's the traffic that we
Speaker 1: have in the southern border is definitely different from the
Speaker 1: type traffic that we have on the northern border. So
Speaker 1: obviously the stuff that they see, uh down south is
Speaker 1: Central American South American based and the stuff that we
Speaker 1: see on the northern border is more based in Eastern
Speaker 1: European Romanians. And yeah, okay, we'll get into that, Sir.
Speaker 1: Hi Charles trost Um, currently the Tusson Sector public Leans
Speaker 1: Leaders on Agent US Border Patrol, just finished up a
Speaker 1: three year detail as a National public Leans Leaders on
Speaker 1: Agent program manager. Okay, so so get I get it,
Speaker 1: but but get approach it with a different set of words.
Speaker 1: So UM. Basically, UM I served as the first point
Speaker 1: of contact for our land management agency partners UM. You know,
Speaker 1: being the border patrol. You know typically we're along the border,
Speaker 1: that's we're working. UM. But we don't actually own any
Speaker 1: property any land out there. So the areas that we're patrolling,
Speaker 1: it's other people's property, if you would, you know, UM SO,
Speaker 1: and that's typically along the border. That's Department of Interior,
Speaker 1: US Department of Agriculture being for a service land so
Speaker 1: BLM land and for a service land well and not
Speaker 1: just BLM. You have fish and wildlife service refugees. You
Speaker 1: have UM. You know, you have the national conservation areas
Speaker 1: with with BLM. You also have National parks UM that
Speaker 1: are along the border areas and so you know that's
Speaker 1: just part of it. And then you also have ben
Speaker 1: yeah Big Bend National huge one organ piped National Cactus
Speaker 1: Monument another big one UM Core not a national memorial.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a whole lot thecmement Wilderness UM in California.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of areas and so UM. You know,
Speaker 1: those land management agencies when when we're patrolling, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's an issue I'm usually one of the first person,
Speaker 1: either myself or within the sector there's a p l
Speaker 1: l A that they would contact and they would work
Speaker 1: out that issue along with that. Though it's not just
Speaker 1: issues like if we have UM technology deployments that we're
Speaker 1: working on, we would reach out to them and it's
Speaker 1: usually the p l A that's UM, you know, helping
Speaker 1: to initiate that conversation and work through that UH. And
Speaker 1: then we find, you know, different collaborative work to do
Speaker 1: UM you know, cross agency training because a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't really know UM about the areas that they're
Speaker 1: working in. Most border patrol agents they don't typically come
Speaker 1: from the area that they're assigned to you and so
Speaker 1: you're coming to this new land. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that the p l A program helps to do
Speaker 1: is not only UM improve the the knowledge of the
Speaker 1: border Patrol agent of the area that they're working in,
Speaker 1: but we also reach out to the public lands managers
Speaker 1: and we teach their new employees about what the border
Speaker 1: patrol is because they may not have any interaction with BP,
Speaker 1: and so we kind of try to teach them, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the work that we do, so they aren't
Speaker 1: just thinking we're out there roaming across their property, you know,
Speaker 1: infringing on their resource. Like there's there's a method behind
Speaker 1: the stuff that we're doing, and we try to broker
Speaker 1: that and and just kind of makes or that we're
Speaker 1: all on the same page that we're out there trying
Speaker 1: to protect the resource as a whole. We just have
Speaker 1: different approaches to doing it and the end result being
Speaker 1: that the area is safe and that people can enjoy
Speaker 1: the resource for what it is. Uh, you are all
Speaker 1: you guys former military. Um, I think I'm the only
Speaker 1: one got it, Brody, former former trivia master. Look at
Speaker 1: that scoreboard, Brody Henderson, why board over there? And by
Speaker 1: day I was quite all be decided, all be decided.
Speaker 1: That's right, the playoffs are coming up. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: I was gonna want to keep doing my old man
Speaker 1: brody things. Crins here, Uh, Phil, And then uh, James,
Speaker 1: go ahead, Hey, James Searle. I'm an assistant chief assigned
Speaker 1: to Board headquarters in Washington, d C. And Uh, my
Speaker 1: portfolio is worked for the Recruitment division up there. And
Speaker 1: my portfolio includes UM brand engagement, sponsorships, Canada developments, and
Speaker 1: virtual outreach for things just like this. To reach out
Speaker 1: to communities and find unique and different audiences to UM
Speaker 1: communicate what the border Patrol does. UM, not just through
Speaker 1: what people see uh on the lens of mainstream media,
Speaker 1: but actually you know, find uh, find more intimate settings
Speaker 1: to communicate who borders all agents are UM and UH
Speaker 1: and engage with the public and you know, provide additional
Speaker 1: transparency and tell them all the other things that we
Speaker 1: you know, you're not going to see just by watching
Speaker 1: big news. UM. Tell you know what, what's what's in
Speaker 1: the gravy that makes up border security. And like Charles explained,
Speaker 1: working with you know, three letter agencies to on on
Speaker 1: various lands to to do our job and border security mission,
Speaker 1: but also in further their missions as well. Uh. Was
Speaker 1: it was you that reached out with like a thing
Speaker 1: like you guys talk about stuff that is that has implications,
Speaker 1: has border implications. Absolutely, and you had a many many
Speaker 1: a very detailed email of many episodes where we bordered
Speaker 1: on the borders. Yeah. First first paper, first paper I
Speaker 1: wrote on reaching out to you guys was back in
Speaker 1: seventeen and uh and when uh, it's just different times,
Speaker 1: sir and uh, I wrote a paper internally to my
Speaker 1: organization on doing outreach with with me eaterback. I thought
Speaker 1: you meant that, Um, you tried to get ahold of
Speaker 1: us and called you back. That's happened two more recently.
Speaker 1: But uh had a phone friend. I had a phone
Speaker 1: a friend. Uh, I believe that you're you're the team
Speaker 1: and haven't reached out back in early summer, I think,
Speaker 1: And but just through the like the regular website contact
Speaker 1: and uh, you never know who you're gonna get. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably wound up in a junk box. People need to
Speaker 1: get ahold of he can say it, but he got
Speaker 1: hold of Kran. You should put never mind. Uh, all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna cover a bunch of this stuff. So let
Speaker 1: me of a couple of for instances though, and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna talk about a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Wait and Yannis here, Oh sorry, y good morning, Yanni.
Speaker 1: Play your real quick play your daughter doing the um.
Speaker 1: This is great. Yanni's daughters learning how to gobble like
Speaker 1: a turkey. But he's got a video. And when he
Speaker 1: showed me the video, she's sort of dressed up real
Speaker 1: nice and facing the camera. I thought she's gonna sing
Speaker 1: the Lavian national anthem. A turkey gobble, A couple of
Speaker 1: turkey gobles. You've never seen a cuter. How does she?
Speaker 1: She's eight. A few of the episodes that that we
Speaker 1: talked about where we got into the we got into
Speaker 1: the landscape of what the Border Patrol does. We had
Speaker 1: episode one seventy nine, the weed warden Um. In James's words,
Speaker 1: this episode touches on cartel smuggling to support illegal marijuana
Speaker 1: grows on public lands. While this focus is on state
Speaker 1: conservation officer enforcement, US Border Patrols part of the largest
Speaker 1: uniformed law enforcement agency in the nation that on an
Speaker 1: average day seizes four thousand, seven thirty two pounds of drugs,
Speaker 1: much of which crosses through or seized on public lands.
Speaker 1: Did you guys see that video Hefflefinger posted when he
Speaker 1: was hunting in Arazon recently, uniformed like uniformed smugglers in
Speaker 1: matching carrying back. He thought he does a bunch of hunters.
Speaker 1: He realized, oh ship like they were like decked out
Speaker 1: like uniforms. It's fairly common. Yeah, he was, he was.
Speaker 1: He was impressed by the professional you'd be. You'd be
Speaker 1: surprised on on the on the level of copycat with
Speaker 1: with not even just uniforms, but vehicles of of what
Speaker 1: folks will try to do. We've seen more control, We've
Speaker 1: seen FedEx, We've seen ups, a whole number of different things,
Speaker 1: vehicles that that smuggles will try to use to get
Speaker 1: their their product. You guys almost bust me in Yannie
Speaker 1: one time. Remember we're driving around and Douglas trying to
Speaker 1: find a place to go. We're kind of lost in
Speaker 1: Douglas and we're in a rental van and eventually we
Speaker 1: got pulled over by board as soon as they looked
Speaker 1: in the window and we're like, they're like, what do
Speaker 1: you guys? We said, they're just basically get out of here,
Speaker 1: but we're kind of lost, stopping and starting and well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we had to, Uh, I forget we had maybe
Speaker 1: we're going to leave a gun that we didn't have
Speaker 1: the proper proper permit for. We're doing a firearms delivered.
Speaker 1: We yeah, stashed firearm for a week while we were
Speaker 1: while we were in Mexico and then come back and
Speaker 1: get it on the way just at a buddy's mom's house,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh couldn't find her house, found it.
Speaker 1: I just quickly run to the house, drop off a gun,
Speaker 1: come back, and yeah, that got us flagged. It makes
Speaker 1: you wonder if they were falling into the whole time
Speaker 1: we got into. We did a wild horse episode and
Speaker 1: that touches you guys in a handful ways, which is internet.
Speaker 1: We're getting into that breaking wild horses used for border
Speaker 1: patrol stuff. Uh. The episode James words focus on impacts
Speaker 1: of wild horse overpopulation to public and tribal lands and
Speaker 1: efforts of the BLM Wild Horse and Burrow Program, which
Speaker 1: US Border Patrol is a consumer of US Border Patrol
Speaker 1: employees wild mustangs for horse patrol operations in strategic locations
Speaker 1: on both the northern and southern borders. That's a trip, absolutely, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess can tell me again what you guys pay
Speaker 1: for one of those horses. I don't know the exact
Speaker 1: dollar amount, but compared to like buying a bread quarter horse,
Speaker 1: it's you know, pennies on the dollar from want to understand,
Speaker 1: and a dog is eight nine thousand bucks. Yeah, trained, trained, trained,
Speaker 1: trained horses three or something five? Maybe yeah, Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that says about dogs and horses. We
Speaker 1: we said we covered episode one oh two l Surprise,
Speaker 1: Oh the gray ghost touches on dangers acrossing the border
Speaker 1: hunting near the border in Cartel Country head on Chairman
Speaker 1: Rob Bishop former Chairman Rob Bishop, uh exploring the potential
Speaker 1: impacts of infrastructure on public lands. US Border Patrol owns
Speaker 1: the requirements that inform the development of barrier systems along
Speaker 1: the southwest border, often referred to as the Wall. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you. Let me ask you a quickie if
Speaker 1: you guys had to rate, Okay, one being ten being
Speaker 1: laying in bed with your spouse at night, and how
Speaker 1: you might feel at liberty to talk about your opinions. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's ten. One being you're with the president tracking where
Speaker 1: do where do you sit in your liberty to express
Speaker 1: opinion right now? Um? I think it depends on the question. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so i'd say low. Again, I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it just depends on the question,
Speaker 1: right because obviously what we're a branch of the executive government,
Speaker 1: so we're bound by by the administration. But uh, um,
Speaker 1: my opinion, uh kind of falls along with with that direction.
Speaker 1: But it just depends on the question. Okay, Well we'll
Speaker 1: see maybe that beyond rate, how honestly felt the replies, Okay,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I don't know if you did
Speaker 1: a good job of setting the parameters, cause I feel
Speaker 1: like you have to be honest with both your spouse
Speaker 1: and the president. No, dude, if you if you let's
Speaker 1: say you're one of these fellows and you get invited
Speaker 1: to the White House, you're not gonna go in there
Speaker 1: and let me tell you what I think gonna go
Speaker 1: in there and be like, you're gonna go there and
Speaker 1: be like, sir, take a picture and you're Okay. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go in there and be like, Hey,
Speaker 1: from a personal opinion perspective, but at night with your wife,
Speaker 1: just I'm the most fucked up thing iver, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, whatever, Charles, what would you say? Um,
Speaker 1: I just finished my details, So I think I'd be
Speaker 1: more at liberty to just let you know, no. No.
Speaker 1: But now I think with with all of us within
Speaker 1: within the patrol um, you know, I feel comfortable saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, just like what she was just talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean we do have that that executive branch.
Speaker 1: But along with along with that, I mean we all
Speaker 1: overall we have the mindset of you know, we want
Speaker 1: what's best for the country. Overall, we want to do
Speaker 1: what's right not only you know, for our our fellow agents,
Speaker 1: but also for you know, our fellow man and woman
Speaker 1: you know and child, for the country. We're all looking
Speaker 1: at what's best for creating a good um set up
Speaker 1: for national security um although within the border patrol you
Speaker 1: have additional things that you need to be concerned about.
Speaker 1: What's best for the technology deployment, what's best for recruiting
Speaker 1: and maintaining our caudre of agents. For for me, within
Speaker 1: public lands, not only what's best for national security, but
Speaker 1: it's what what's best for the relationship we share with
Speaker 1: our land management partners and our stakeholders. And so it's
Speaker 1: it's trying to find that that good balance and then
Speaker 1: being able to deliver that balance, you know, in a
Speaker 1: way that's palatable to both sides, to to understand and
Speaker 1: to um accept, collaborate on and move forward from. You're.
Speaker 1: The only area I'm gonna really care about the level
Speaker 1: of honesty is when later I ask about based on experts,
Speaker 1: based on opinions of being around, when I ask about
Speaker 1: any insights you guys might have around the question of
Speaker 1: wildlife migrations in the border wall. Yeah, So I'll be
Speaker 1: the only no, no, don't do it now. But I'll
Speaker 1: just say this. I would say that if I was
Speaker 1: asked to going to the president and provide my opinion
Speaker 1: on on X topic, I would provide my opinion and
Speaker 1: whether he decided to take it or not would be
Speaker 1: completely up to him. So the thing is it really accurate?
Speaker 1: Is it? And so I the question would be, is
Speaker 1: is if if you were to ask me a question
Speaker 1: of if if walls work, my statement to be yes,
Speaker 1: we have data that says they work. If you were
Speaker 1: to ask me, um, in my opinion, do I support walls?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't answer that question because I'm in line with
Speaker 1: what the administration wants to do and that my opinion
Speaker 1: as a leader walls work because the data says that
Speaker 1: walls work. Whether or not I agree with walls or
Speaker 1: not is my own personal opinion, and I think it's
Speaker 1: good business to keep my personal opinion out of professional
Speaker 1: So like you're interested, you're you're you're comfortable with an
Speaker 1: opinion around or not an opinion, You're comfortable with objective analysis,
Speaker 1: but not like subjective opinions. Absolutely, okay, Uh so what
Speaker 1: I want to ask, But I don't want to spend
Speaker 1: a ton of time on this, but I think Karn
Speaker 1: spoke to you about my my desire to get a
Speaker 1: person to come in here to minister a lie detector
Speaker 1: the mediator office fish highest mystery. Well, I got a
Speaker 1: new lead on last night, no good lead. It's no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not the crime. So now who stole my fish? I
Speaker 1: got a good lead on getting a detector person in.
Speaker 1: How much how much exposed you guys have to in
Speaker 1: minister in lie detectors? Me personally, I mean I led
Speaker 1: the recruiting division before I left headquarters and James worked
Speaker 1: for me over there. So I haven't a little bit
Speaker 1: of information on on the CBP polygraph But I was
Speaker 1: in law enforcement in Colorado and have taken many polygraphs.
Speaker 1: So do UM sure of having one of them polygraphs?
Speaker 1: What's the Do you guys have a hot tip from
Speaker 1: from being an enforcement a hot tip about how to
Speaker 1: tell when someone's spinning your yarn? Well, I would say
Speaker 1: that the best way to be and and we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about read techniques right when you're he
Speaker 1: asked somebody a baseline of questions, right, if I'm talking
Speaker 1: to honest second asked, hey, where were you born? And
Speaker 1: he would give me that response, and I'm I'd be
Speaker 1: watching what he's doing. So it's like whether or not
Speaker 1: he has a lie detector hooked up to right. Well, not,
Speaker 1: you don't even need a lie detective hooking up to him.
Speaker 1: So if I was to ask Johnnie, what was the
Speaker 1: do it with? What was the greatest hunt that you
Speaker 1: ever had? Oh, that's when I went with Steve to
Speaker 1: Kentucky and we killed squirrels. So and that would be
Speaker 1: based on on on the baseline questions right where I'd
Speaker 1: ask and watching his eyes. So historically, when people access
Speaker 1: a part of their brain that's truth, they'll look to
Speaker 1: that side of their brain. So when they go to
Speaker 1: tell a lie, they look to the other side because
Speaker 1: now their eyes literally literally move. What's the true side? Well,
Speaker 1: you'll have to do That's why you asked the baseline questions,
Speaker 1: things that you know are true. What's your name, where
Speaker 1: were you born? You know how old are you? And
Speaker 1: you watched their eyes? Yeah, So a follow up to
Speaker 1: that would be uh to to determine truthfulness would be so, Yanni,
Speaker 1: you know, what would you say to someone else who
Speaker 1: wants to go on a hunt in Kentucky for squirrels
Speaker 1: with Steve. Would you recommend that? Did I asked the
Speaker 1: question about his st if you want, I asked my question.
Speaker 1: So I'll just give you I'm just part of a
Speaker 1: test here, bro what I asked him what his greatest
Speaker 1: hunt was. His eyes actually flittered to my right or
Speaker 1: his left. But when he asked him the other question
Speaker 1: we was going to make something up, they dotted to
Speaker 1: his right and my left. So that's how you can
Speaker 1: determine whether or not they're being honestly. Yeah. I use
Speaker 1: it with my kids all the time. They ate me.
Speaker 1: So Steve, if you give, you know, if we get
Speaker 1: a couple of more tips, maybe you could actually, you know,
Speaker 1: be the question er. But if you start wearing shades
Speaker 1: around here, you get a situation. Let's say you just
Speaker 1: encounter you en connor someone and you and you just
Speaker 1: talk to him. We had a cop on the other day,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't here as a cop. He was here
Speaker 1: as a Walleye tournament person. But I said to him, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta spend half your time having people tell you
Speaker 1: telling you bullshit or whatever. And he said, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you probably spend half your time people telling you bullshit
Speaker 1: because it's just it's everywhere. It's not like it's just
Speaker 1: in my world, you know. But how do you, uh like,
Speaker 1: how quickly do you know someone's not being fourth right?
Speaker 1: So you just like I said, when you established that
Speaker 1: baseline of questions, you've got an idea where they're gonna look,
Speaker 1: and then you start something you go to and then
Speaker 1: when you start digging down to the questions, then it's
Speaker 1: the other non physical things they can control. They cover
Speaker 1: their arms because they're they're creating a barrier between you
Speaker 1: and them, or they push themselves back, they lean back,
Speaker 1: they put their feed up, They create barriers. So whenever
Speaker 1: somebody's lying to you there they don't sit comfortably. They
Speaker 1: physically can't control themselves, so they create barriers. So when
Speaker 1: you talk to people, you can see them starting to
Speaker 1: do those kind of things. You should be telling people
Speaker 1: this dead straight on and I'm gonna lean toward the
Speaker 1: person unless there's an absolute sociopath work in the media.
Speaker 1: But isn't it like, isn't it if you are looking
Speaker 1: like dead straight that you're not able to hold that
Speaker 1: consistently And if like someone is being questioned and they're
Speaker 1: trying not to lie, they'll try to do the opposite
Speaker 1: of the thing that's anticipated of them. So if Steve
Speaker 1: is looking you, looking at you dead center too much,
Speaker 1: that might signal something and you're breaking the tension of
Speaker 1: a gaze would be a would be a you know,
Speaker 1: a nonverbal queue. Well what does that mean? Break? And
Speaker 1: I know what it means, But what does that tell you?
Speaker 1: If I mean, if they're locked on and they can't
Speaker 1: they can't look at you straight while actually telling something
Speaker 1: that's false. They can't physically take the tes of looking
Speaker 1: you directly in to tell you that. It's easier for
Speaker 1: people to hold the gaze telling the truth. It's easier
Speaker 1: to tell him, yes, yes, you're you're gonna be. Someone
Speaker 1: who's truthful is going to be actively engaged in the conversation,
Speaker 1: probably like remembering, pointing at things the cooler was here,
Speaker 1: uh this, And they're because they're recollecting things that actually happened,
Speaker 1: where someone who's lying is going to be searching and
Speaker 1: breaking that that tension. So there's actually a video out
Speaker 1: there Manuel Noriega back in the in the late nineties
Speaker 1: where that he was being interviewed by somebody on on
Speaker 1: the news and they were talking about a bunch of
Speaker 1: things and he had exactly where you're talking about, where
Speaker 1: he had this stet set gaze and they got to
Speaker 1: the question, well, how much money do you really make?
Speaker 1: And you can watch the video, his eyes go from here,
Speaker 1: this is how much I make. I can't tell him
Speaker 1: that all the way over here to this is what
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell him, And that that video is
Speaker 1: actually out there on YouTube. So if you go and
Speaker 1: find that, he'll give you a pretty good idea of
Speaker 1: to the video where he's locked in and they asked
Speaker 1: him a question and he looks in that you can
Speaker 1: see that whole eye movement back and forth. Nick Nixon
Speaker 1: in the in the White Waters, the famous videos, he
Speaker 1: has a tell he oh yeah, right, like before he says,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't there was no misconduct. He says
Speaker 1: like three different things. To prepare the national audience too,
Speaker 1: you know, listen to me. I want you to hear
Speaker 1: me clearly. He's like, I'm preparing the nation to for
Speaker 1: what I'm about to lie to you about it. And
Speaker 1: he's trying to like re encourage everyone that what I'm
Speaker 1: about to say instead of just telling the truth. He
Speaker 1: prepares everybody for what he's about to lie about. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton did the same thing on the whole Monica
Speaker 1: Lewinsky thing, come out and said, I want to tell
Speaker 1: the American people, can you talk about this this triangle
Speaker 1: signal templing when you're when you're when you're templing your
Speaker 1: you're it's like a make a show up dominance, Like
Speaker 1: I am, It's like, I'm over you. Can you describe
Speaker 1: what that is? Like your pointer describing to me over
Speaker 1: the phone. I thought it was Clinton's signature deal where
Speaker 1: he like, imagine you make a fist. So I'm just
Speaker 1: just to the audience. Imagine you make a fist that's
Speaker 1: sitting vertical, so your knuckles are lined up vertical. Clinton
Speaker 1: would then roll his thumb over the top so it
Speaker 1: left so his thumb would rest on the middle knuckle
Speaker 1: of his pointer finger. I think it was like, I
Speaker 1: think he must have had a pointing habit. I think
Speaker 1: he did that in that you know I did not
Speaker 1: and like driving the point fold yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that someone said don't it's too aggressive, and so he
Speaker 1: started to go up in that. But he would then
Speaker 1: roll that pointer finger and he'd have that little thumb
Speaker 1: pointing out and it was widely parodied. So when criminals
Speaker 1: talking about Clinton's hands, I thought she was talking about that,
Speaker 1: But you're talking about him making up some and I
Speaker 1: guess him putting his fingers together, making a little church.
Speaker 1: It's like templing, is what I believe they call it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a show of dominance over who you're
Speaker 1: talking to. Apparently it's a subconscious thing. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I did bring my kids, but I associate it was
Speaker 1: trying to like calm myself down where I'm like, listen,
Speaker 1: look me in the eye. Yeah, I'm establishing dominance for sure. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: gotta plug our trivia tournament. We're gonna crown a trivia
Speaker 1: champion three tournament episodes. So the way it's gonna go,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like an elimination thing. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of a good sports analogy, but I can't help
Speaker 1: me out any playoff, playoff, any bracket ever start with
Speaker 1: you guys play along the mediator trivia. Ever, it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: we're not we're not having one today because we were
Speaker 1: all prepared. I came in thinking we probably were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're him in trouble. I continue to hear from Tommy Edson,
Speaker 1: the blue collar scholar who always sends me his scorecard
Speaker 1: on his steering wheel because he does it on a
Speaker 1: lunch break or something at work. And of course he
Speaker 1: said me the other day he had to not tell
Speaker 1: me Gus thinks he's be the randing champion. But then
Speaker 1: we had him here and he didn't win. I don't
Speaker 1: know what, I don't know. I gotta get him back here.
Speaker 1: He's always telling me he won this and one that. Um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start with four teen players and weed him
Speaker 1: out as we go a lot of drama and surprises
Speaker 1: along the way. Well, Brody NDErs, Um, you know I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not talk to hr about this age is
Speaker 1: and thing going on while you're doing it. You know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go down there with you. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: know what I learned His age is. Um. Did you
Speaker 1: know that you can't dog on someone for not knowing technology?
Speaker 1: M that's ages. Um, you can't say, oh, he's not
Speaker 1: tech savvy of a person of my age, and that's
Speaker 1: all anybody does. His goof on me. I get skinny shamed,
Speaker 1: I get tech shamed. YEP. So yeah, let me know
Speaker 1: what that age. We'll go down there and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: Brownie has some complaints about me, and I have some
Speaker 1: complaints about everybody else. Was it inappropriate for me to
Speaker 1: say Phil sounded twice his age? I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of complex. Come down business here. Now,
Speaker 1: I'd like to tell you complaint about these podcasts. Guess
Speaker 1: we had to get your take on something. Oh, this
Speaker 1: guy wrote it. Really See, I'm telling you I got
Speaker 1: two stories for you, guys, but they're they're appropriate because
Speaker 1: they both border on law enforcement and lawbreaking kind of.
Speaker 1: So a guy, a guy rode in. It takes a
Speaker 1: lot of um somethings like that takes a lot of
Speaker 1: I don't know, gumption. Let's say, yeah, we use a
Speaker 1: lot of you. Oh, I was wrong on a Yiddish
Speaker 1: word recently, making love is to stop. Oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that stuck. It's stuck stuck and uh someone wrote
Speaker 1: in to correct me. Will so check this out. Will
Speaker 1: from Omaha, Nebraska. This is an insane story. He's hunt
Speaker 1: a piece of land. So he's in Nebraska. He's hunt
Speaker 1: a piece of land accessible only by boat on the
Speaker 1: Missouri River. Okay, he had decided to take. So he's
Speaker 1: going out scout and he wants to take down his
Speaker 1: own dear stand because he's got a camera out and
Speaker 1: there's no action on the trail camera. He says he
Speaker 1: had noticed that there had been a stand that had
Speaker 1: been sitting in the same spot in the woods for
Speaker 1: three years, on the same piece of public land. In Nebraska,
Speaker 1: a stand becomes legally abandoned after February, Right, So if
Speaker 1: you put a stand in public land in Nebraska, you
Speaker 1: got till February take it down, at which point it's
Speaker 1: it becomes part of the public property. He decides to,
Speaker 1: as he put it, acquired that stand, and he froll
Speaker 1: sees to go down do some scouting, and that's I
Speaker 1: think that's like a good thing to do because he's
Speaker 1: not only acquiring his stand, but he's cleaning cleaning the
Speaker 1: woods up. Oh man, there's one I got my eye
Speaker 1: on on a chunk of state land. It's been there
Speaker 1: for three years. Well talk to this guy first. Where
Speaker 1: the story gets crazy. He also had set out a
Speaker 1: line for catfish, so he goes to check out his
Speaker 1: line for catfish. He's messing with his catfish line and
Speaker 1: another boat pulls up, asked him if he's seen anyone
Speaker 1: in the area because they just had a stand stolen.
Speaker 1: He says, cool. I messed up by panicking and not
Speaker 1: confessing that it was me and tried to play it
Speaker 1: off like I didn't know. He then he was looking
Speaker 1: to the right side of his brain, like I was shocked.
Speaker 1: This guys after this guy's writing in about this. He says,
Speaker 1: they then decided to check my boat and found their stand.
Speaker 1: They went into a fury, and when I tried to
Speaker 1: explain my reasoning, it made no difference to them. They demanded,
Speaker 1: under threat of violence, that I showed them my I
Speaker 1: d and then asked if I had taken a ship
Speaker 1: by their setup. I had, he says, they had. He
Speaker 1: says they had a whole illegal camp set up with
Speaker 1: two by fours nailed into trees to make a windbreak,
Speaker 1: and a picnic table and a fire pit. But he
Speaker 1: thought this stuff was from years past and it was
Speaker 1: obvious they had been there a long time, so nature
Speaker 1: called I took a dump there. They then demanded, once
Speaker 1: again under threats of kicking my ass, that I pick
Speaker 1: up my ship with my bare hands, and so I
Speaker 1: did what I had to do to not get eat up.
Speaker 1: Then left was told to not come back there again.
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna hunt there because I did see some
Speaker 1: nice scrapes. And that's man dedicated to the cause right there.
Speaker 1: He wanted to get our opinion on it. I don't
Speaker 1: have no opinions. I have one opinion. He's a service shitter.
Speaker 1: Oh that's bad. Oh yeah, that ainion. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: other guys the wrong too. Right sorted out with the
Speaker 1: game Warden. Two wrongs don't make it. He should have
Speaker 1: buried his uh ship and then he wouldn't at least
Speaker 1: would have had half the problems that he had. He Um.
Speaker 1: He says, Also, I'd like to serve as an example
Speaker 1: of how even if you're not breaking the law, you
Speaker 1: can still find yourself in trouble, and once caught, just
Speaker 1: tell the truth because if you don't, nothing you say
Speaker 1: after that half will be believable. Also, don't ship in
Speaker 1: other people's camps. Um, here's what I want to bring up.
Speaker 1: But it's this is gonna this is gonna take some
Speaker 1: production skills. Yanni, do you remember long ago what episode
Speaker 1: number was that Double Digits Episode sixty. We recorded an
Speaker 1: episode in Guyana with a mkushi man named Roven Alvin.
Speaker 1: I do remember this. Do you remember what Roven told
Speaker 1: us was going on with the local white lipped peckery population.
Speaker 1: I remember something about that he told us. He told
Speaker 1: us that they were having a problem because there was
Speaker 1: a village down the river that was jealous of his
Speaker 1: village's prosperity, and they had a shaman who had locked
Speaker 1: all of their packery's in a mountain, And they had
Speaker 1: a young shaman in their village that they were hoping
Speaker 1: would get trained up and developed the necessary skills to
Speaker 1: unlock the packers from the mountain because they hunt white
Speaker 1: lipp packeries. The other day, I'm looking through my emails
Speaker 1: and there's, uh, I subscribe to a news list and
Speaker 1: there's a email there's an article, a study called the
Speaker 1: case of Latin America's mysterious disappearing and reappearing white lip packeries.
Speaker 1: And it gets into how so they look very similar
Speaker 1: to a ha alina, which is a collared packery, but
Speaker 1: they run in herds of two. I mean, there's there's
Speaker 1: a video attached to this article that just is like
Speaker 1: a cross, like a a trail along the river and
Speaker 1: it just goes on for seven eight minutes. My kids
Speaker 1: love it. It's just seven eight minutes of white lip
Speaker 1: peckeries just flooding through across this trail. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: goes on to talk about this research to document large
Speaker 1: scale white lipped peckery disappearances and wild population cycling across
Speaker 1: the range in Latin America, and it alludes to indigenous
Speaker 1: people's mythologies that were built up to explain how it
Speaker 1: could happen that one minute there's hundreds and you're living
Speaker 1: off them. In the next minute they're just gone. And
Speaker 1: the article talked about that very thing. Um. Other More,
Speaker 1: what would you used for it? Not a cult? That's
Speaker 1: not the right word spiritual X. I don't know is
Speaker 1: that the right word? Spiritual explanations? What would you say?
Speaker 1: Other worldly explanations? Maybe spiritual explanations for a phenomenon that
Speaker 1: researchers are just now trying to understand. It goes on
Speaker 1: and on, but I think we should revisit that story
Speaker 1: um from Rovin as much as much as as possible,
Speaker 1: and then think about that where this paper it goes
Speaker 1: on and on about these wild population migrations and fluctuations
Speaker 1: and talks about this being a long standing puzzle among
Speaker 1: indigenous people's roban. We talked about something privately, and if
Speaker 1: you don't want to talk about you don't have to.
Speaker 1: But would you mind talking to a public audience about
Speaker 1: what happened with the packeries or is that something you
Speaker 1: don't want to discuss, like why you're not seeing them
Speaker 1: right now? Well, um, we have sha men. They are
Speaker 1: like the I would say, they're like the doctor's northst
Speaker 1: Livory you would call in your country. But here we
Speaker 1: have like shamans. They are knowledgeable, they have the power
Speaker 1: of using we call it a Marian science. They can't
Speaker 1: do anything to a fish the river, to animals such
Speaker 1: as pickery is um twelve. Approximately twelve years ago, we
Speaker 1: used to have lots of peckeries coming close to the
Speaker 1: village feeding a white white lit packer. Would you come
Speaker 1: like a one hundred or two hundred of them at
Speaker 1: a time. Yeah, they're like a hog pig. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: call it white. We call havel. We have the collared packer,
Speaker 1: which is called Havilina. This is a bigger, louder, more
Speaker 1: gregarious Havilina species of colored white let packery. So this
Speaker 1: this hugs white hugs. Pickery is used to come and
Speaker 1: feeding in the end of the ponds. We didn't fruits
Speaker 1: not warm. And as you go trout up the river
Speaker 1: you can bump into them. You can head them up
Speaker 1: a destance. You can't even smell them. It's a fine.
Speaker 1: So we to have a lot of fun like shooting,
Speaker 1: and we have like meat. You can barbecue lots of
Speaker 1: barbecues fresh meat. Now in order I'm ranging villages. They
Speaker 1: have people that have very knowledge, like you said show men,
Speaker 1: and because of we um having a lot of food
Speaker 1: and where they don't. Now there's like jealousy if forever,
Speaker 1: if I'm jealous of Steve, Steve is accurately shooting, I
Speaker 1: would do my highest science on Steve and next time
Speaker 1: he would shoot accurate. Anything should is like miss keep
Speaker 1: missing a curse on them. Yeah, So because of my
Speaker 1: I use my high science on him. So people are
Speaker 1: like like that here. So what they do is like
Speaker 1: this top the pickeries, they lock them up somewhere well
Speaker 1: I don't were, but somewhere in the mountains. I have
Speaker 1: no idea using their highest science. Now to get the
Speaker 1: pickers to come out from there, we have to get
Speaker 1: another another shalman that could do the highest science to
Speaker 1: get the pickers out from there because they are lacked
Speaker 1: out there. Now, if we have one like that, we
Speaker 1: could get the speakers out now they will be all
Speaker 1: over again. But that's that's how the pickers had me stopped.
Speaker 1: How did they showman get that get to that level? Well,
Speaker 1: is there someone training or you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: They learn from their parents. Their parents like it was
Speaker 1: like a shaman and smoke, tobacco, trades, nose and you
Speaker 1: know that these a lot of things. They can bring
Speaker 1: them like a fish spirit by shaking the bush in
Speaker 1: the house and doing their things and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And then they can bring them like a picker is
Speaker 1: h pickery is leader. I would call it that way. Now, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, gab with him, take shout of local drink,
Speaker 1: you know by spirit. And then if the shaman said, okay,
Speaker 1: what I want to luck you up here for a
Speaker 1: while to three years, four five years, how many years
Speaker 1: and be there, I don't come on, I want you
Speaker 1: to be there. I want you to stay there. That's
Speaker 1: how the shaman works. They have like a little power designs.
Speaker 1: They are working so they are like good and bad ones.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you are here and you said,
Speaker 1: the picker is but we used to have a lot
Speaker 1: of pickers here. We have to have a lot of myths.
Speaker 1: We used to have a lot of fun. But now
Speaker 1: there's no white pickories. We just have the colored ones around.
Speaker 1: Did the did the shaman or the other village that
Speaker 1: use the high science to lock up the packers? Did
Speaker 1: they tell you that they were doing this or did
Speaker 1: the packers just disappear? And then you you you speculated
Speaker 1: that that's why they We we know, we know, we
Speaker 1: know because for a while we didn't any pickeries and
Speaker 1: then we have our shaman. And the village is not perfect,
Speaker 1: but at least you can get some experience. But he
Speaker 1: could already could tell you what is happening. He knows
Speaker 1: what happened. So he said, ah, there's somebody locked them
Speaker 1: up there, so they're there. That's what anymore. Even the
Speaker 1: fish like, if somebody like do something to the river,
Speaker 1: you will hardly get some fish, hardly get some turtles, otters,
Speaker 1: kinmons and so on. So that is how the shaman works.
Speaker 1: There are gooddons and bottons, you know, they could do
Speaker 1: any anything. I understand whoever, like I understand why someone
Speaker 1: would be jealous of rewild village because it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: village that's wonderful to visit. So I understand how someone
Speaker 1: that had a bad village that wasn't this way and
Speaker 1: this friendly and such great people. Um, I see how
Speaker 1: they would get jealous. Yeah, but I don't think that you.
Speaker 1: I don't think that that that that that I hope
Speaker 1: that your packery's come back. Yeah, I hope they come
Speaker 1: back soon. Some day I started to shan wanna being
Speaker 1: like briandad. I hope that I hope that they come back.
Speaker 1: Guy wrote in why I always say that pronghorns smell
Speaker 1: like freedom lay corn chips. It's a bacterial him. Dogs
Speaker 1: get him, Dogs can get him. It's not harmful, but
Speaker 1: that dogs need the same bacteria. It makes them smell
Speaker 1: like corn chips. If I wasn't lying, When you guys
Speaker 1: round up those prong horn, do you ever get a
Speaker 1: whiff of freedo smell? Um? Yeah? What does it smell like?
Speaker 1: It smells like the desert. Yeah, I can't say that
Speaker 1: I've ever smelled corn chips. Smells like not just corn chips,
Speaker 1: Freedo lake. Well, because I was I was thinking about
Speaker 1: a while back, I can't remember which guest it was
Speaker 1: that you had had um. He was talking about how
Speaker 1: like one of his favorite smells is like when your
Speaker 1: dog is sleeping and you know it's a really good
Speaker 1: sleep because your dog gets up and it smells like
Speaker 1: corn chips. And he said I was in my car
Speaker 1: listening to that, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one that's ever smelled that, like
Speaker 1: I thought. I thought for sure I was the one
Speaker 1: that was crazy, like because I talked to my kids
Speaker 1: about it and they're like, I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: smelled that from the dog's dad. And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: swear like sometimes when the dogs sleep, if it's a
Speaker 1: really good sleep, they and it smells like corn chips.
Speaker 1: And I just heard it somebody else, somebody else has
Speaker 1: a dog that does that, and I was super psyched that, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not crazy like this is. And now there's scientific
Speaker 1: information that backs up my dogs can smell like corn chips,
Speaker 1: and it's okay. I actually think that's on the it's
Speaker 1: on their paths at the feet's on the path. It's
Speaker 1: not harmful, but it can spin out of control. It
Speaker 1: talks about dogs control their body temperature by paintings, since
Speaker 1: they don't perspire. The only place dogs have to cool
Speaker 1: downs on the bottom of their feet. Chip sizes This
Speaker 1: veterinarian emphasizes that the friedo smell is completely normal and
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that your dog has a bacterial or fungal infection. However,
Speaker 1: he's a it goes on, he's older, they can get
Speaker 1: out of control and uh, your dog can get unhealthy
Speaker 1: feet bumps, redness, swelling, or changes in your dog's behavior,
Speaker 1: So watch out for that. All right, Do you guys
Speaker 1: want to start with the southern border of the Northern border?
Speaker 1: How are you supposed to do this? Mm hmmm, I
Speaker 1: guess like rock, paper scissors? Yeah, where's the wind blowing today?
Speaker 1: Is it coming from the north? STI I was gonna
Speaker 1: say north. I don't know why it's my decision, but
Speaker 1: something start. Let's start with the north. I feel like
Speaker 1: the south is the carrot. What patrol in the northern border? Um,
Speaker 1: I made a joke about it being sleepy, but what
Speaker 1: are the primary what are the primary things that were like, look,
Speaker 1: what are the primary elicit activities that happen along the
Speaker 1: northern border? So in reality, so just a quick one
Speaker 1: on one on on on border patrol. Border patrol is
Speaker 1: one component within Customs and Border Protection UM, and I
Speaker 1: want to make a clarification that there are there are
Speaker 1: three law enforcement components within side Customs and Border Protection
Speaker 1: or can you can you touch on Department Homeland Security
Speaker 1: comes into this department and Homeland Security is the mother agency.
Speaker 1: So uh CVP is basically an agency withinside the Department
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security, which is basically the don't do all
Speaker 1: the acronyms. Yeah yeah, So DHS or Department Homeland Security
Speaker 1: is the cabinet level and then UM the agency level
Speaker 1: is Customs and Border Protection. A better analogy would be
Speaker 1: Department of Justice and FBI. So FBI is a is
Speaker 1: an agency withinside the Department of Justice, and so that's
Speaker 1: where CBP falls in. UM. Border patrol is a component
Speaker 1: of CBP. There are three law enforcement entities of CBP.
Speaker 1: Aaron Bury Aaron Brens are the folks that fly all
Speaker 1: the helicopters and do all the deep water stuff right
Speaker 1: out in in in the Atlantic Oceans. I've never heard
Speaker 1: of that, well, probably because most people don't. Most people
Speaker 1: when they think about the border patrol, they think about
Speaker 1: the people that you encounter a crossing the border. It's
Speaker 1: called air and marine Aaron Marine, Yeah, Aaron Breene operations,
Speaker 1: and they are they are the component they fly all
Speaker 1: the not coastguard. Coastguard is an entity of DHS. So
Speaker 1: do they run like the edge of US waters and
Speaker 1: international waters? Like is that the extent of their range
Speaker 1: or they do along with border patrols. So the separation
Speaker 1: of what we call deep water and brown blue water
Speaker 1: and brown water. So me being a sailor, right, I'm
Speaker 1: a blue water sailor. Coastguards or brown water sailers because
Speaker 1: they hug the they never get out out of side
Speaker 1: of the shore. So are Aeron marine folks? Those guys
Speaker 1: go into the deep water because that they have the
Speaker 1: bigger boats and go out and interact, uh stuff like
Speaker 1: you'd see the Cuban refugees and things coming across in Miami.
Speaker 1: And then our border patrol agents still operate air and
Speaker 1: marine boats, but they operate in the coastal water raise
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes and things like that, and they operate
Speaker 1: within about three to five miles of the coastline. So
Speaker 1: can Aaron Marine operate in international waters? Um? I have
Speaker 1: to do? You remember back in your days. Uh, from
Speaker 1: the on the on the water now, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think they get out far enough in the water.
Speaker 1: But in the air, Uh, they have a lot more liberty,
Speaker 1: right for some of their operations they do, so I
Speaker 1: would say the historically they probably stay within federal federal
Speaker 1: waters right and if they are operating outside into into
Speaker 1: international waters, they're probably working in with the Coastguard because
Speaker 1: Coastguard has that ability to do that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: So Aeron Marine they handle like I said, they're all
Speaker 1: our pilots. There are UM and they handle all the
Speaker 1: all the deep water blue water UM activities. UM Office
Speaker 1: of Field Operations. Those are the blue uniforms. Those are
Speaker 1: the folks that you're going to encounter at the port
Speaker 1: of entry and trade and at the airport. So their
Speaker 1: responsibility is between the confines or within the fence line
Speaker 1: of the port of entry. That's what OLD does. So
Speaker 1: when you guys go to Mexico or go to Canada
Speaker 1: and come through a port of entry, you're interacting with
Speaker 1: with officers from field operations and then the Border Patrol
Speaker 1: is the entity. Those are green uniforms. We operate in
Speaker 1: between the ports of entry. So all that traffic that
Speaker 1: comes in of the legal entries is what the border
Speaker 1: patrol is encountering and working on. Got it? Okay, that's
Speaker 1: what you need. Okay, let's say you're crossing. I know,
Speaker 1: we're back to I just can't. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to the southern border from it. You're crossing at the
Speaker 1: Argo creator Douglas Crossing. You're when you're in that customs process,
Speaker 1: you're not dealing with border. You're dealing with Field Office
Speaker 1: of Field Operations customs and different different color uniform, different
Speaker 1: components within If I go off, if I go east
Speaker 1: or west twenty miles and try to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: If you're hunting south in New Mexico, you find yourself
Speaker 1: up on the line because you're tracking something and you
Speaker 1: across the line, then you're gonna be dealing with the
Speaker 1: border patrol because you've just made an entry at a
Speaker 1: place in time not designated as a border ventrol. Do
Speaker 1: you know all that, honey? I do not. It makes sense? Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's how that's basically the one on one of
Speaker 1: border patrol, and we operate between the ports of entries,
Speaker 1: and somehow I've lost the question. So what um on
Speaker 1: that on that wide open, lonely border, the northern border
Speaker 1: between the US and Canada. What kind of dark, shady
Speaker 1: stuff goes on up there. Uh So the difference between
Speaker 1: the northern water and southern border on the northern border,
Speaker 1: because obviously we're dealing with weather and uh the geography
Speaker 1: is a little bit different along the northern border. Obviously
Speaker 1: that not that Arizona doesn't have mountains, but the mountains
Speaker 1: are bigger in in in Colorado and Montana or in
Speaker 1: Montana than there are in Arizona. See, the traffic is
Speaker 1: a little bit lower, but you deal with what we
Speaker 1: call a little bit more exciting things. So, um, this
Speaker 1: year recently, we had a a gentleman from from Canada
Speaker 1: kidnaped his his living girlfriend and their two children, and
Speaker 1: he was a sex trafficker and ended up coming south Eline.
Speaker 1: He came through a place not designated port of entry
Speaker 1: and we ended up with a task force. We apprehended them.
Speaker 1: I don't know why this guy went to to Sturgis,
Speaker 1: South Dakota at the time of Sturgist when they had
Speaker 1: every cop in the world there, but that's where he
Speaker 1: ended up going, and through a task force, we ended
Speaker 1: up apprehending this guy. This guy was his his girlfriend
Speaker 1: had some mental incapassibilities. Um, but his goal was to
Speaker 1: take the children to use for child pornography at Sturgist.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason he went to Sturgist. I don't have
Speaker 1: to struggle for reasons why he would have. Obviously he
Speaker 1: had no intelligence. That's the last place I would go
Speaker 1: during during bike because of the law enforcement coverage. But
Speaker 1: that's a handful. Yeah. So it's those type of cases
Speaker 1: that we run into and and uh, the other stuff
Speaker 1: that we get right now, guns are super super popular
Speaker 1: in Canada because of the gun laws and things in
Speaker 1: Canada Canada. So a a weapon, a polymer eighty right,
Speaker 1: those those glock clones that we buy here for what
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred bucks, there's someone for five and
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars a piece in Canada. So that's the
Speaker 1: stuff moving the other That stuff moving the other day.
Speaker 1: Is that your responsibility U pushing borders out the border troube.
Speaker 1: We want to be partners with with all law enforcements
Speaker 1: and and our focus is on and what I would
Speaker 1: call border security and more along homeland security and pushing
Speaker 1: those borders out and making the entire border safe, and
Speaker 1: we can only do that by working with our Canadian
Speaker 1: partners and our Mexican partners. So so yeah, I never
Speaker 1: thought that if you're at the border, you're also looking southward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the concept that we are like that we're
Speaker 1: working on in have Her. Like I had commented early,
Speaker 1: we go all the way down to Colorado and Utah.
Speaker 1: Our focus is on homeland security entities, right, those things
Speaker 1: that have an impact on on the entire homeland security.
Speaker 1: Try thinking of children trafficking and people smuggling weapons. And
Speaker 1: I don't need to talk about Fenton, al. All you
Speaker 1: gotta do is turn on the news and see what's
Speaker 1: happened in fentanyl. So, with the Border Patrol and our
Speaker 1: law enforcement capabilities with Title eight, Title nineteen, and Title
Speaker 1: twenty one, which is UH. Title nineteen is the Customs
Speaker 1: and Tariffs law, Title twenty one is the Narcotics law,
Speaker 1: and Title eight is the overall criminal statute for for
Speaker 1: the United States, we have authorities and all three of
Speaker 1: those titles, so that gives us the ability to interdict
Speaker 1: all that traffic. So that's what we're trying to do
Speaker 1: in the Border Patrol is go after those things that
Speaker 1: are that are dangerous to the country, Like, I mean
Speaker 1: everyone is child traffickers off off the streets, and we
Speaker 1: want to get fountainl off the streets. And that's the
Speaker 1: direction that we're trying to go with The Border troll
Speaker 1: is not so not be so much focused on the border.
Speaker 1: We're focused on the border, but we want to focus
Speaker 1: on those on those things that have an impact throughout home,
Speaker 1: homeland security or public safety. How do how do people
Speaker 1: move how do people move guns? Ac Like, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to move guns into Canada, how do you see
Speaker 1: it done? Do you see it done at you see
Speaker 1: it done at not at crossings? Oh, you actually see
Speaker 1: a mix right. So again, the like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: smugglers go through great, great stinch to try to hide
Speaker 1: whatever product they're trying to trying to smuggle. Um, we've
Speaker 1: seen we've seen narcotics on aptrack coming from Seattle going
Speaker 1: to New York or to Minneapolis, and then the cash
Speaker 1: that that's coming back. We see in most cases a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff is probably happening between the ports
Speaker 1: of entries where they've go out, just like you would
Speaker 1: hunting to go out and scouting area to see where
Speaker 1: traffic is where they can actually get across, and they
Speaker 1: bring across through either smuggling through a port of entry.
Speaker 1: They use hidden compartments in vehicles, um for narcotics, to
Speaker 1: use body carriers, a whole gamut of things that they
Speaker 1: try to do. Do car tells ever move because it
Speaker 1: do drug traffickers in South in Columbia wherever South and
Speaker 1: droll America? Do they ever get stuff to Canada and
Speaker 1: then into the US from Canada or is that just
Speaker 1: add a lot of complexity? Um, Well, again, I think,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's this new paradigm, right, we're seeing
Speaker 1: We're seeing smugglers go through different stents to try to
Speaker 1: to try to make money. Right. I mean when we
Speaker 1: talk about when we talk about people trying to come
Speaker 1: to the United States, there's always somebody out there that's
Speaker 1: gonna prey on that person. Right, They're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna drive him into his slavery. So they're gonna say,
Speaker 1: i'll smuggle you. It's gonna be twenty dollars per person.
Speaker 1: So this person brings him in there his five family members,
Speaker 1: so now he's he's in destitute to the smugglers. So
Speaker 1: he doesn't have that money, so they put him to
Speaker 1: work to work for them, and and so they're working
Speaker 1: for him, but they're also having to pay the smugglers rent,
Speaker 1: They have to pay the smugglers the electricity and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. So all the money that they make to
Speaker 1: try to pay back being smuggling, they never touch because
Speaker 1: they're they're hitting him on all these other factions of absolutely,
Speaker 1: so they're they're they're just destitute to do in that.
Speaker 1: So that's the type of stuff that they do. I
Speaker 1: think that um Nar cartels are gonna do whatever they
Speaker 1: can to make money, and if there's a way to
Speaker 1: make money to take a product to Canada and come south,
Speaker 1: they will. Um In fact, they think that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised to see it with with Mexican nationals. I mean,
Speaker 1: Canada has a very liberal visa waiver pro program. So
Speaker 1: the visa waivers, the countries on on on the visa
Speaker 1: waiver list for Canada are like three hundred or four
Speaker 1: countries are on there. All you have to do is
Speaker 1: be from that country. You come into Canada and you're
Speaker 1: given automatic status in Canada as a non immigrant, and
Speaker 1: they give them money to live and survive for approximately
Speaker 1: twelve months, So I wouldn't good first step. Good first
Speaker 1: step is to make it into Canada and then utilize
Speaker 1: those social work programs and then when that's done, then
Speaker 1: you can come south. Or if you can get Canadian citizenship,
Speaker 1: then it's a free broke right because we it's open
Speaker 1: borders for just as its open borders for us to
Speaker 1: go to Canada, it's open borders for Canadian citizens to
Speaker 1: come south. Canadian citizens, whether they're naturalized or born Canadians
Speaker 1: as they can come back and forth. So because that
Speaker 1: entities out there, the things that we look at is
Speaker 1: there's a possibility for somebody to come up, utilize the
Speaker 1: programs and then be smuggled back down south. A lot
Speaker 1: of the nine eleven hijackers flowed through Canada, all four
Speaker 1: of them. It was a whole lot more than four.
Speaker 1: All four crews, the four, the four on the planes
Speaker 1: all came through. Oh actually came through Swanton, Vermont and
Speaker 1: h who. Just the other day, I had a conversation
Speaker 1: with someone where they're telling me that they had gone
Speaker 1: black bear hunting in Canada. Okay, like many people do.
Speaker 1: There's places around like bear bait factories, in Canada and
Speaker 1: so many you know guys got to hunt bears in Canada.
Speaker 1: And he was telling me, and it's the thing I
Speaker 1: hear all the time. He was telling me that they
Speaker 1: told him you can't bring the meat home. No, that's
Speaker 1: that's not true. I know. There's so much confusion about
Speaker 1: if you ask ten guys, you're gonna get ten different
Speaker 1: answers about how it works with it. You can't bring
Speaker 1: your gun, you can't bring meat. You can't drive from Alaska,
Speaker 1: even though I know you can. You can't like take
Speaker 1: Alaska meat from Alaska into the Lower forty eight because
Speaker 1: of the who's um, who's bidding, like, who's setting those rules?
Speaker 1: So those rules are those are the the AGG specialists
Speaker 1: that actually worked for OFOS off Office of Bild Operations.
Speaker 1: The guys at the port of entry. So if you
Speaker 1: come into a port of entry and you see somebody
Speaker 1: at at the at the primary and they're wearing a weapon,
Speaker 1: that's a that's an officer. They also have folks that
Speaker 1: aren't on their non law enforcement types and their AGG specialists,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that set those responsibilities. So moose is
Speaker 1: a perfect example. You can go up and hunt moose
Speaker 1: in Canada. The only thing you can't bring south is
Speaker 1: any of the contents of the head because of the
Speaker 1: cw D. Yeah, so so with let's tell me it
Speaker 1: can come across without a problem. So tell me what
Speaker 1: someone would need to do. Uh, you go bear hunting
Speaker 1: in Canada, UM, and you want to drive up with
Speaker 1: a gun, and you want to come back with the
Speaker 1: bear meat and the bear hide and everything. So if
Speaker 1: you follow the proper stuff, there's no reason you can't
Speaker 1: do that. And and and and I just did it
Speaker 1: in my personal capacity to I went up to I
Speaker 1: went up to New Brunswick, shot of black bear and
Speaker 1: just did just as past September and went through that
Speaker 1: entire process. UH. Can't bring can't bring the baculum back. UM,
Speaker 1: can't bring ball bladder. UM. And and quite quite frankly,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the UH. I don't know they're what
Speaker 1: their official name is, but it's basically their version of
Speaker 1: us fashion wildlife, the Canadian Fishing wildlife for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term. They're the ones that actually did the
Speaker 1: rigors inspection on the way out of the country on
Speaker 1: their side, UM, to make sure you weren't bringing down
Speaker 1: stuff that has a black market and and extreme you
Speaker 1: fill out of survey, they do a deep dive into
Speaker 1: what outfitter you're used. They we were talking about investigative techniques.
Speaker 1: They investigated. They separated me and my best friend who
Speaker 1: was the driver, talked as just to see if we're
Speaker 1: telling the same story, but asking us about what altfreder
Speaker 1: we used. Uh, did the outfit ter got the animal
Speaker 1: in the field? Did the outfitter himself take anything back
Speaker 1: from the gut pile when he came back to camp?
Speaker 1: How many days we were there? Um? Huh. So that
Speaker 1: like that's and because they're trying because of the black
Speaker 1: market trade for all of the animal parts specific to
Speaker 1: UH controlled species in Canada, they want to make sure
Speaker 1: that those things aren't being transported illegally throughout their country
Speaker 1: or back into the United States. UM. As far as
Speaker 1: the process of just going over and coming back, it
Speaker 1: was at this time around, you know, you know, we
Speaker 1: were kind of nervous because of all the things post COVID,
Speaker 1: with the Canadian restrictions on ongoing there. There's a new
Speaker 1: app you gotta fill out to arrive can and whatnot.
Speaker 1: We thought it was gonna be pretty difficult, and it
Speaker 1: was actually really really seamless. Um, all things considered. Uh,
Speaker 1: the bringing in a gun you can bring up to believe,
Speaker 1: up to three guns per person. Um. It's a simple
Speaker 1: form they where you just identify what guns you're bringing up,
Speaker 1: serial numbers, and I believe you pay a permit fee
Speaker 1: and you just have to keep it on your person
Speaker 1: the entire time you're hunting and on the way back. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's just an inspection by Canada on the way out,
Speaker 1: by their by their Efficient Game Agency to make sure
Speaker 1: of all those things we just talked about. But taking
Speaker 1: the meatback taking I had already I cleaned my skull
Speaker 1: and we boiled our skulls in Canada. So I don't
Speaker 1: know the restrictions on brain matter for bear, because I
Speaker 1: don't know if if their brain matter is a disease
Speaker 1: carrying but not that I know of. It might be
Speaker 1: that they don't. It might be that they don't. They
Speaker 1: create a whole bunch off. You're my experience, and what
Speaker 1: I kind of sense from them is if you're bringing
Speaker 1: like the entire the entire animal back absent into kernels,
Speaker 1: there's a lot less of an issue, whereas if you
Speaker 1: just like if you try to do things like pull
Speaker 1: the clause and just bring the clause back. They ding
Speaker 1: you on that. God, But if you're bringing back the
Speaker 1: entire the entire hide with the skull inside the hide
Speaker 1: and the claws still on everything, no issue. So long
Speaker 1: as you're not bringing back the restricted items like baculum
Speaker 1: and gall bladder. I didn't know there was a black
Speaker 1: market on vaculum. Did you know that? Prior to going
Speaker 1: you only knew about gall bladder. Yeah. You mentioned the
Speaker 1: US Fish and Wildlife Service. Do you guys work with
Speaker 1: them a lot for like illegal trafficking endangered species that
Speaker 1: like is that a big partnership. Yeah, that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that that that we do work with
Speaker 1: them on, um, you know, not so much on their
Speaker 1: investigative per the whole investigation side of it, but like
Speaker 1: some sometimes it's initiation of because of a lot of
Speaker 1: the training that that we do that that cross agency
Speaker 1: training and inter agency training. Like when there are um,
Speaker 1: you know, like certain times of the year when um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of herpetology. Uh what's I can't remember
Speaker 1: what the we call like her thieves or poachers. Um,
Speaker 1: so they'll come out and like the fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Service will let us know, Hey, you know, it's springtime,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get a lot of her poachers out and
Speaker 1: so we'll we'll get together with them and we'll create
Speaker 1: like little campaigns within um, you know, within the patrol,
Speaker 1: within the sectors and stations, to like create little um
Speaker 1: kind of like posters and emailings out there. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about it our musters and say, hey, guys, you know,
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife. You know they're they're going to be
Speaker 1: out there, but these are some of the things to
Speaker 1: look out for. And if you happen to see that,
Speaker 1: you know from you know, while you're out there patrolling,
Speaker 1: here's the contact information. So they're interested in people smuggling
Speaker 1: across the border, not not even they're just interested in
Speaker 1: people out in the landscape stealing snakes and lizards. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I guess I was asking more like, when
Speaker 1: you see a new article like man gets busted with
Speaker 1: forty seven whatever dangered endangered species in his suitcase or whatever, like,
Speaker 1: is that, like do you work with the US Fish
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service on those kinds of things. So when
Speaker 1: it's something like that where it's like you said, you know,
Speaker 1: busted in a suitcase with you know, twenty five you know,
Speaker 1: endangered bats or sparrows or something. A lot of time.
Speaker 1: That's what like what Chief Fortunato was talking about, UM
Speaker 1: is when it's an agg specialist that's probably caught that
Speaker 1: at a port of entry, Like they were going through
Speaker 1: the port of entry and they were inspecting the contents
Speaker 1: of the bag and then they found that, you know,
Speaker 1: on the bag or on their person and stuff like that. UM.
Speaker 1: But again with border patrol, we're working in between the
Speaker 1: ports of entry. So like we'll do stuff with like
Speaker 1: the Land Management l e O for you know, the
Speaker 1: Wildlife Refuge or the park um you know, or even
Speaker 1: you know one of their biologists specialists and let us
Speaker 1: know about something. And I actually think it depends on
Speaker 1: the area too. So if you get down too, uh
Speaker 1: the real Grand Valley, there's there's Santana Refuge which is
Speaker 1: right on the Rio Grand River, which is a very
Speaker 1: big populated location for smuggling back and forth across. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have ever been down south,
Speaker 1: but in a very heavily trafficked area that the landing
Speaker 1: on the on the river side is is destroyed plastic bags,
Speaker 1: water bottles, these makeshift floatation devices and things like that,
Speaker 1: and that Santa Ana Refugees is known for a spot
Speaker 1: for them to come across in that area, and it
Speaker 1: just riddles the entire public land where people in Santa
Speaker 1: refuge is a hiking area and things like that where
Speaker 1: they have to go down and and see all that
Speaker 1: type of stuff. So when the when somebody comes across there,
Speaker 1: it's often a fishing wildlife person that might encounter them first,
Speaker 1: that would come up and we would encounter them and
Speaker 1: and and work that direction. So I think a lot
Speaker 1: depends on on on the area that is in proximity
Speaker 1: to the border and and things that go along Lada.
Speaker 1: I know also in in Rio Grand Valley with the
Speaker 1: with the river, fishing wildlife is on the river, so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of times where the they'll jump on
Speaker 1: a boat with borbatrol and then patrol, which then takes
Speaker 1: the scope of the scope and authority a little bit bigger.
Speaker 1: So now you just don't have the scope of authority
Speaker 1: of the BORBA relib of the scope authority of the
Speaker 1: fish and Wildlife officers, so that you can do more things.
Speaker 1: The same thing with Coastguard when we put a Coastguard
Speaker 1: person on our boat. We now have all the authorities
Speaker 1: of Coastguard, so we can do checks and things like that.
Speaker 1: I gotta here's nother question about the Northern border. What
Speaker 1: is if you imagine the most out of the most
Speaker 1: remote areas of the northern border, like say the Boundary
Speaker 1: waters or okay, I worked there for eleven years, how
Speaker 1: do you know? Do you know when you've crossed the border? So?
Speaker 1: So in reality? Right? So? Yes? And no, right, because
Speaker 1: we've GPS s and things like that. Um, Like in
Speaker 1: the boundary waters, right, it's a pristine there's no mechanized
Speaker 1: there's no but there's no there's no there's no cut line,
Speaker 1: there is no cut line. Right. So, and the thought
Speaker 1: process this comes on. And the same thing with the
Speaker 1: Rio Grand River when you're when you're working at our
Speaker 1: concept is you can't take water and split it in
Speaker 1: half and say this belongs to the United States and
Speaker 1: this belongs to Mexico, or this belongs to Canada, and
Speaker 1: this belongs to the United to the United States. They
Speaker 1: do it all the time, well, they try to. But
Speaker 1: the reality is, as long as and this is our
Speaker 1: thought process, as long as you don't make a meaningful entry.
Speaker 1: And a meaningful entry on water would be to stop
Speaker 1: and drop acre or drop a fishing line or something
Speaker 1: like that, and you're just cascading through. If you're on
Speaker 1: a canoe, and a canoe you're canoeing. As long as
Speaker 1: you don't make a meaningful entry stop and do something,
Speaker 1: then you just keep on going. That doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: It's when you actually stop and drop a fishing line
Speaker 1: or stop me in Canada that means you're now and
Speaker 1: he made a meaningful entry. Really ye, So if I
Speaker 1: do just nudge my foot across the border, I've broken
Speaker 1: the law. Do you make a meaningful entry? So in Rey,
Speaker 1: in reality and and and James, you worked in in
Speaker 1: del Rio is probably the same way. We actually didn't
Speaker 1: consider folks coming across the river when I worked in
Speaker 1: mccallen's Exs. We didn't think. We didn't consider them making
Speaker 1: an entry till they made landfall. If they were standing
Speaker 1: on the U S side and still ankle deep in water,
Speaker 1: we didn't touch them because they haven't made a meanful entry.
Speaker 1: But the moment they come on land, they've made a
Speaker 1: meaningful entry. Now I'm not saying that people probably weren't grabbed,
Speaker 1: because that probably did happen. But the reality is, in
Speaker 1: most cases you could step and say until they actually
Speaker 1: leave the crest of the water, they haven't made a
Speaker 1: meaningful entry. So if you if you stepped out to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom, then you made a meaning canoe
Speaker 1: and bound. Yeah, you they would say that you made
Speaker 1: a meaningful entry. Let's move whatever. Before we hear this
Speaker 1: threat in Montana of wild pigs coming down from Canada.
Speaker 1: Wild pigs supposedly feral pigs. Supposedly Saskatchewan has like a
Speaker 1: little population of wild hall game farm Yeah, like capes,
Speaker 1: maybe even in the rags. There's always like a little
Speaker 1: blip in there about like if you see, you know,
Speaker 1: feral pigs when you're hunting up you know in that
Speaker 1: have her area, you know, on the high line or
Speaker 1: whatever along the Canadian border, to immediately notify you know,
Speaker 1: the local warden. But no, no, no thoughts or I
Speaker 1: guess there's there must not be that big of a
Speaker 1: problem if you guys are no, no, no, no, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of fun um. I would relate
Speaker 1: it to I don't know. I think that the similarities
Speaker 1: would be a livestock on the on the Mexican side.
Speaker 1: So we have we have tick riders down in in
Speaker 1: Texas and there's a lot of feral pigs, horses, and
Speaker 1: cattle that come across the river, and that would be
Speaker 1: tick riders that would go out and interdict that traffic
Speaker 1: because of the ticks and things down the tick riders
Speaker 1: do you remember, I think there are an interior, their
Speaker 1: deprimate interior. No, what's the US the international? Do they
Speaker 1: work boundary commis and all are I thought they were
Speaker 1: at agriculture there, Yeah, it's I don't think it's UM.
Speaker 1: I think they work for UM boundary water yea. So
Speaker 1: they are there. They're law enforcement official. Their sold job.
Speaker 1: They ride horses. They go out and they look for
Speaker 1: livestock or traffic or animal traffic that has come from
Speaker 1: Mexico to the United States to apprehend them, to take
Speaker 1: them and dip them because of the ticks in in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Just livestock. I haven't heard anything of live colleagues are
Speaker 1: real stickers about when you when someone wants to bring
Speaker 1: a deer cape deer in Mexico and you're looking at
Speaker 1: the US border. Okay, so you imagine a tick like
Speaker 1: an ambitious tick would just but but you want it,
Speaker 1: you're looking. You can kill a deer inside of the
Speaker 1: US border, and when you go through customs, you can't
Speaker 1: have a single tick on that cape. That's part of that.
Speaker 1: That's why we would not you know, I get it,
Speaker 1: like you don't know where it came from. Whatever. You
Speaker 1: gotta do your job. But I would laugh about, well,
Speaker 1: how many ticks right now are crossing that border on coyotes,
Speaker 1: I mean the animal on whatever the hell? Yeah, mule deer,
Speaker 1: cuse deer like ticks are back and forth. I had
Speaker 1: no idea that there's someone out actually, yeah, cruising for
Speaker 1: cruising for livestock to just because of the ticks? Do
Speaker 1: they got a bad just as ticks? They are They
Speaker 1: are a law enforcenate. I think the job I actually
Speaker 1: take their Department of Agriculture and and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: exactly what they work for, but they are. They are
Speaker 1: a law enforcement officer, federal officer that works, and that's
Speaker 1: their soul jobs. And it's mainly horses and cattle and
Speaker 1: and hugs. So yeah, wildlife to wildlife, wild just comes
Speaker 1: and goes. But if there's a if there's a Mexican
Speaker 1: cow that comes across and gets through the double tick
Speaker 1: fence and onto you know, some ranches they have to
Speaker 1: particularly in Texas is where I know it is, they
Speaker 1: have they have one basically barbed wire fence right on
Speaker 1: the water and then another one like like ten yards
Speaker 1: off of that, and it's to try if anything gets
Speaker 1: past the first one, a lease is contained in that
Speaker 1: one little barrier close to the rapairian zone right there. Um.
Speaker 1: But then if it gets through that second one, so
Speaker 1: they try and contain them in that little that little
Speaker 1: corridor right there, so they don't make you know, in
Speaker 1: further into whatever property they're on and they start mixing
Speaker 1: with if the if whatever they're carrying gets with the
Speaker 1: cattle that these ranchers are are running, it becomes a
Speaker 1: bad day. And we we've had situations where like a
Speaker 1: smuggler's horse gets through and then we have the season
Speaker 1: and it's it's a ton of paperwork when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a with a with a horse from Mexico. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely What's even worse, is it if because you don't
Speaker 1: know where they came across. So if you're out patrolling
Speaker 1: you see this horse or something come on the drag road.
Speaker 1: You don't know where it came from. They know what's
Speaker 1: not supposed to be there. You call a tick rider,
Speaker 1: and if it happens to be just the local farmer
Speaker 1: whose horse got out, oh yeah, they get a little
Speaker 1: fired up. Man. I wish you guys had brought up
Speaker 1: this tick riding because I wish I knew that. I
Speaker 1: wish I was the only guy that knew, the only
Speaker 1: media person that knew about tick riders. To answer your question,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anything about Farrell Hawgs coming south from
Speaker 1: from Canada. Oh yeah, I forgot about. So we're on
Speaker 1: the lookout. If you look at where I used to
Speaker 1: think that hogs would buy sort of like by definition
Speaker 1: have to be would be confined to the American South. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's not true now. If you look at like
Speaker 1: maps of where where hoggs could feasibly you know, without
Speaker 1: any sort of human persecution, where hoggs con feasibly live,
Speaker 1: it's the Lord. Did you guys just do a question ridiculous?
Speaker 1: Number four states have confirmed that's absolutely incredible, and there's
Speaker 1: no reason that they. I mean, I guess you could
Speaker 1: in the northern Great Plains, you could feasibly have like
Speaker 1: the the landscape would support them. Probably, I would, because
Speaker 1: you need to be like, well, I thought it'd be
Speaker 1: too cold, but then you think about where they're at
Speaker 1: in Siberia. Well, Yannis is up in Latvia. How high
Speaker 1: is Latvia. It's not that it's like the same latitude
Speaker 1: as Juno, but it's got pigs. Yeah, oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds pretty cold. It's got native well I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: And the because I think of Juno is within the
Speaker 1: context of Alaska, and like the southeast of Alaska is
Speaker 1: just not nowhere near the extreme temps Buttarctic circle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: latitude wise, no, they got they could have a trement,
Speaker 1: they could, they could be there. I think it just
Speaker 1: be easier to obviously, eradicating hogs on the northern plains
Speaker 1: would be like a much easier job than out of
Speaker 1: heavily Georgia than out of swampy jungly show. I mean,
Speaker 1: even though even though it's mostly private land, Texas is
Speaker 1: pretty open and uh yeah they so, oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: real skeptical. We covered this recently. We had a guy
Speaker 1: we just did an episode in Hawaii and we're on
Speaker 1: a coffee plantation and you know, all the pigs, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't. All the pigs cause so much damage. And
Speaker 1: I asked my body who loves to hunt them? I said,
Speaker 1: do you really want them gone? No? Exactly yea. In
Speaker 1: my personal opinion, I'd say, uh, you mon kind of boys,
Speaker 1: better start shooting them pigs before they post rigs. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was saying, if you really hated the pigs. I
Speaker 1: was telling my friend Danny, who's been on the podcast
Speaker 1: for I said, if you really hated pigs, you put
Speaker 1: up a big sign that said please come hunt my land.
Speaker 1: I said, your pigs be gone. He said, but can
Speaker 1: you imagine what kinds of people would show up in
Speaker 1: my Buddy Callahan said, barbecuers. All right, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the Southern Boarder. We kind we're already kind of talking
Speaker 1: about the Southern Boarder with the tick riders. How many
Speaker 1: tick riders are there? I think they're mainly based in Texas. Handful,
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a big agency. This article. I
Speaker 1: was just reading, Uh, they are under the U. S
Speaker 1: d A. There was eighty six of them sick riders.
Speaker 1: Not very big, I feel that, but I don't know
Speaker 1: bad Larry McMurtry's that's still not around it right, like
Speaker 1: a thousand page novel. Titilated to the extreme. Oh, you
Speaker 1: know the double you're talking about, the double fence. I
Speaker 1: was on a friends ranch not long ago and one
Speaker 1: of his line fences was a double fence yep. And
Speaker 1: I asked him why he has why one of the
Speaker 1: line fences a double fence. And I thought that it
Speaker 1: must have been some dispute, you know whatever, Like we
Speaker 1: would go through the trouble putting fences like five ft apart,
Speaker 1: six ft apart. So I said, what's going on with that?
Speaker 1: And it's to keep um, it's from keeping the cattle
Speaker 1: from stopping through the fence. Look at that stopping with
Speaker 1: the neighbors cattle, keeping breeding populations away from one another,
Speaker 1: they'll stoop through the fence. Wow, surprised me. Nature is
Speaker 1: always going to happen, right, Uh, how long have you
Speaker 1: guys been? How different is working on the southern border
Speaker 1: now than it was you know ten years ago, twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, thirty years ago. It's not even the same
Speaker 1: now as it was three years ago, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just what they're dealing with in in
Speaker 1: sheer numbers is the human numbers, human numbers. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: just the numbers that they're dealing with. Give me a ballpark,
Speaker 1: like how many people are on a daily basis, how
Speaker 1: many people are in some way or another flirting with
Speaker 1: the border? Um? Yeah, and I remember the numbers from
Speaker 1: last year. I think James is looking. I think we
Speaker 1: were for one point border patrol encounters. Fiscal year twenty
Speaker 1: two is two million, two thousand, six hundred and fifty two,
Speaker 1: and then I think was one point five one point
Speaker 1: six point six. Yeah, so in just one year, you know,
Speaker 1: half a million people. If you had so many border
Speaker 1: patrol agents that you guys can stand along the border
Speaker 1: shoulder to shoulder, would that completely stop illegal movement across
Speaker 1: the border. And so this is gonna be my opinion.
Speaker 1: All right, So probably you're shaking your head. No, no,
Speaker 1: I I if there's money to be made, a smuggler
Speaker 1: is going to do something. He's gonna try to smuggle something.
Speaker 1: So that I don't think that we will ever stop
Speaker 1: of traffic coming back and forth across the borders. It's
Speaker 1: just not feasible. You got something you well, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: you could put you could put peoples shoulders the shoulder
Speaker 1: and they're gonna go to the air or they're gonna
Speaker 1: go more to they're going to go to concealment rate
Speaker 1: you know, through the through the ports of entry. UM.
Speaker 1: And so it's you know, how how far are we
Speaker 1: going to dig into you know, inspections more so than
Speaker 1: we already do at the international borders, you know, try
Speaker 1: and facilitate legitimate trade and travel UM takes a you
Speaker 1: know a unique balance of of enforcement and UM and
Speaker 1: throughput in order to maintain our economy. UM. So you
Speaker 1: know what is the answer, I don't know, UM, but
Speaker 1: putting forth the best the best known practices of of
Speaker 1: of intelligence, surveillance capabilities UM in order to get you
Speaker 1: know that that traffic through at the ports of entry,
Speaker 1: but also block off what's in between the ports the
Speaker 1: ports of venture like we do is it's it's a
Speaker 1: delicate dance. So everything we do, right, I mean, their
Speaker 1: counterintelligence smugglers, counter counter of tongues just as good as ours.
Speaker 1: They're gonna see how we're reacting to certain traffick in
Speaker 1: an area, and they're gonna change their tactics and it's
Speaker 1: up to us to figure out how they've changed their
Speaker 1: tactics and react to it. So, like you said, we
Speaker 1: can put you know, shoulder to shoulder and they're either
Speaker 1: gonna fly over because if there's money to be made,
Speaker 1: they're gonna they're gonna do it, or they're gonna tunnel.
Speaker 1: You guys have probably we've had a rash of tunnels
Speaker 1: along the southwest border. They'll dig a tunnel and come underneath,
Speaker 1: or um they'll they'll expand on their on their their
Speaker 1: concealment methods, like the tractor trailer down on Larrado. They'll
Speaker 1: do different things to try to get them across. If
Speaker 1: there's money to be made, smuggles are gonna are gonna
Speaker 1: smuggle it. Is there a part of the agency or
Speaker 1: a different agency that you guys work with that looks
Speaker 1: at it on a bigger scale, like a social scale,
Speaker 1: like what could we do so that there wouldn't be
Speaker 1: this money to be made or wouldn't be this demand
Speaker 1: for these things that cause these issues? Or is there
Speaker 1: somebody working on it from that angle that questions that
Speaker 1: endle will be a consequence, right, So actions have consequences, right,
Speaker 1: and if it's a negative consequence, you probably he won't
Speaker 1: do that action again. So the the best method of
Speaker 1: stopping somebody from doing something is having negative consequence on
Speaker 1: their action, right, um. And and that's the delicate dance.
Speaker 1: Right to operate within as a chief patrol age. And
Speaker 1: I'm given I'm given the left and right boundaries from
Speaker 1: the administration, and it's up to me to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get from A to B within those left
Speaker 1: and right boundaries to deliver that consequence. I think, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what yeah, An, what you're I think what you're more
Speaker 1: referring to, UM, I would say it does happen if
Speaker 1: you look at the way that the federal government might
Speaker 1: try to go down and engage with governments in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: governments in Columbia about how to improve conditions adjustments that
Speaker 1: they might make where they're not creating an inhospitable environment
Speaker 1: for people that then we have to deal with at
Speaker 1: our borders. So like, take some of that money and
Speaker 1: try to go to the root, cause that's going to
Speaker 1: be more Department of State type activities in order to
Speaker 1: eliminate push factors from these from these countries. And we
Speaker 1: have our International Affairs UH division over in in operational services,
Speaker 1: another component within customs and Border protection where they work
Speaker 1: with our foreign partners and try to figure out ways
Speaker 1: to deliver consequences and and and also to to get
Speaker 1: other countries to step up and and assist us in
Speaker 1: these in these actions. How how is your working working
Speaker 1: relationship with like Mexican government and authorities? Like is it
Speaker 1: something you guys work with? It's like, are they helping
Speaker 1: you prevent people from crossing the border? Is that not? Well?
Speaker 1: So we work both with with with Canadian and and
Speaker 1: yeah and South So I think really the relationship is
Speaker 1: pretty good. But the other thing is too. You have
Speaker 1: to remember now we're getting into the politics, right, The
Speaker 1: politics of of Mexico and the politics the United States
Speaker 1: are two very very different things. So it's and and
Speaker 1: those agencies that we work with down there, whether it's
Speaker 1: Sadeta or any of those other countries, are those UH
Speaker 1: agencies within the Mexican government. They have the same left
Speaker 1: and right boundaries that we do. So there between between
Speaker 1: the two of us were trying to find the best
Speaker 1: way to deliver a consequence or help um UH in
Speaker 1: impede UH traffic coming through right because obviously I think
Speaker 1: that the country of Mexico wants to do what they
Speaker 1: can because the impact from South American people coming through
Speaker 1: Mexico has the same impact on the citizens of Mexico
Speaker 1: that it does on the citizens in United States. So
Speaker 1: they have a vested um benefit in trying to work
Speaker 1: with us. So it's not like you guys would get
Speaker 1: a call and be like, hey, well we have we
Speaker 1: have a group coming, we have folks in heeded, we
Speaker 1: have folks embedded in in in countries through the International
Speaker 1: Affairs Program, so that that then intelligent to sell shared
Speaker 1: back and forth. I was hunting to Havelina in Arizona,
Speaker 1: UM last February for a couple of days, just messing
Speaker 1: around a couple of friends of mine, and we had
Speaker 1: found a big They were showing me just a big trail,
Speaker 1: like kind of an unexpected location. It's like a big
Speaker 1: crossing trail, and there were areas that had We went
Speaker 1: to this one area they showed me where it had
Speaker 1: stashes that had been depleted, clothing stashes and water stashes
Speaker 1: and people would change clothes and an empty water jugs
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh yeah, they'll have people come ahead
Speaker 1: and scout and set all that stuff. Then the people
Speaker 1: come over and they know where it's at. It was.
Speaker 1: I took a T shirt that I found, brought it home,
Speaker 1: gave it to my kid and said, that's a drug
Speaker 1: runner's T shirt. He got all excited about it. My
Speaker 1: wife then took it away from him because she's like,
Speaker 1: he's gonna go to school, he's gonna tell everybody to
Speaker 1: drug Like, what do you you know? She's like, why
Speaker 1: do you have to tell him that it's in my
Speaker 1: rag bin in my garage now? But she's like, you
Speaker 1: can't give him like half a story like that and
Speaker 1: then expect him to probably probably the best place for
Speaker 1: her to know what to say, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a drugging shirt. The question I wanted to ask about
Speaker 1: it is, so we're in the same place for a
Speaker 1: couple of days, creeping all around the woods, and um,
Speaker 1: no one talks to us, like, no one comes and
Speaker 1: checks on us and my buddies like they know what
Speaker 1: you're doing. They border patrol. So again, I I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna speak for myself and and that I think I
Speaker 1: can tell the difference between somebody laying in and hunting
Speaker 1: and somebody laying in and do something else. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: just like just like if I'm working at a port
Speaker 1: of entry, and James is coming back and he's got
Speaker 1: a weapon, and I said, well, why do you have
Speaker 1: a weapon while I went hunting? And I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: through his car and I'm gonna see that. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: he's got some meat. He's also got this guy's been hunting.
Speaker 1: There's some validity to that story compared to somebody coming
Speaker 1: and saying, oh, I went bear hunting in Canada and
Speaker 1: all they have is a bunch of rifles and they
Speaker 1: didn't look like they've been hunting at all. So I
Speaker 1: think in most cases, most portant, most ports religions have
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea of their of the area that
Speaker 1: they're working in, and and they also have a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea of what areas are are high trafficked in
Speaker 1: hunters and and then are high traffic and other things.
Speaker 1: Not only that, um, you know, hunters, Borber religions are
Speaker 1: very pretty good at sign cutting. All of us are are.
Speaker 1: It's just that's the one thing they say about a
Speaker 1: border tril agent is if you need somebody to help track,
Speaker 1: call a Borber trilogy because they're good trackers, and you
Speaker 1: alien smugglers or or narcotic smugglers, they go to great
Speaker 1: lengths to try to brush outside where hunters don't necessarily
Speaker 1: worry about that, right because the sign you're following is
Speaker 1: obviously something else. They'll they'll brush, absolutely, they'll brush out
Speaker 1: the tracks that well. They will wear carpet on their
Speaker 1: shoes to try to hide their tracks. They'll they'll walk
Speaker 1: backwards to make it look like they're going the other direction.
Speaker 1: They carry a leaf blower, carry leaf blowers, any any
Speaker 1: number of things. I've even seen them take coves from
Speaker 1: from cattle and strap them to their feet to make
Speaker 1: it look like cattle traffic and not human traffic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the weed warden we had talked about that
Speaker 1: area where they had an illegal grow and you just
Speaker 1: thought it was all cattle making little shoes, making little
Speaker 1: shoes like that and they're strapping them to their feet. Oh. So,
Speaker 1: we have a podcast on our network that's by a
Speaker 1: guy named Clay Newcome called the Bear Grease Podcast. He
Speaker 1: had a guy on there telling a story recently where
Speaker 1: he had killed buck and cut the tarso glands off
Speaker 1: it and tied the car tarsal glands to his shoes
Speaker 1: and he bout got attacked by a buck. Believe it.
Speaker 1: He said this buck. He could hear. He kept hearing
Speaker 1: something behind him, and this buck was coming snorting at him.
Speaker 1: He killed it, but he said he doesn't do that anymore. Not,
Speaker 1: no I did. He said it scared him bad when
Speaker 1: he turned around there, it was coming for him. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's talk about those big ass blimps. Oh, aerostats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now here's where you can't. Here's where you're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to tell me anything. What's up with those
Speaker 1: big gas blimps? Okay, weather balloons. No, we make a
Speaker 1: real habit of staring at those blimps when we're hunting
Speaker 1: down there, and we're like that dude he could tell
Speaker 1: when you're picking his nose and when you're picking your nose.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, and I haven't seen the
Speaker 1: So the aerostats are just let you guys know, in
Speaker 1: the south west part, they have a great deal of
Speaker 1: technology between the cameras and the lights and all that
Speaker 1: stuff that's gone out there. You guys have probably been
Speaker 1: down the You've probably seen the scope trucks or the
Speaker 1: or the trailers that are those kind of things are
Speaker 1: always up on the good glass. Yeah, they're causing problems, right,
Speaker 1: So they're actually gone up and leaned against those the
Speaker 1: fences around that stuff glass and yeah, so the aerostat
Speaker 1: is just another instead of having a helo or a
Speaker 1: plane flying, we can put up an arrow stat and
Speaker 1: use the erostat like a camera to look at an
Speaker 1: area to see where traffic is coming or traffic is
Speaker 1: coming across. Has a way to identify what the traffic
Speaker 1: is and then give us an idea of how to
Speaker 1: interdict it. So one one question that I had for
Speaker 1: James when we first spoke was all of the hardware
Speaker 1: and video cameras and such along the border. That's picking
Speaker 1: up everything that the camera I will pick up. But
Speaker 1: how is that being used to in your uh feel Charles,
Speaker 1: like looking at animals crossing you know how that's monitoring
Speaker 1: wildlife as well. Yeah, that's a that's a great question,
Speaker 1: really like cool. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. Actually it is
Speaker 1: exactly like that. We've we have actually had, um, there
Speaker 1: have been a few cases in the past where we've
Speaker 1: where we have you know, seen big cats um from
Speaker 1: those things, not not from the aerostat um, but from yeah,
Speaker 1: through some of our other technology. Yeah, we get some
Speaker 1: pretty over the years, um that that I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to to be in this position. I've been privy
Speaker 1: and able to share it with with our land management
Speaker 1: partners on some pretty unique situations have happened with wildlife
Speaker 1: and the border. Oh yeah, I posted I post a
Speaker 1: picture every month on on the Instagram page for the
Speaker 1: have Her Sector Chiefs of stuff that we've seen mountain
Speaker 1: lions and things like that on some of our game camera.
Speaker 1: So you've picked up uh, you guys have picked up jaguars.
Speaker 1: We well, I mean we haven't, but yeah, we've had
Speaker 1: pictures on like on some of our surveillance where we've
Speaker 1: had jaguars. And do you notify wildlife folks about that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And well, you know we have to go through there
Speaker 1: there are some you know, security things that we have
Speaker 1: to go through internally. Um, but we do you know,
Speaker 1: relay that information out to Fish and Wildlife Service for
Speaker 1: their and for you know, so they can keep track also. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, occasionally we have some fun stuff
Speaker 1: that happens, like there was um, I think it was
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of year is back, we had a
Speaker 1: bear that climbed the border wall and then would climb
Speaker 1: climb one of the light towers. Um that's along the
Speaker 1: borderer or tried to climb the light tower anyways. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we had um uh a mountain lion that
Speaker 1: actually got on top of the border wall and was
Speaker 1: like walking across the top of the border wall. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: what did he end up doing? I end up going south? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he came. He came from the north, speaking of like
Speaker 1: what you're going across the north to the south. He
Speaker 1: went north to the south south, Yeah, and right over
Speaker 1: the right over the fence group. Like, I feel like
Speaker 1: there's just gotta be so much visual information of like
Speaker 1: interesting critter stories that all of that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: imagine there's a ship ton of cameras, so just everything
Speaker 1: that you pick up. Yeah, I mean we pick up, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we pick up a lot of stuff. And it's just
Speaker 1: the more interesting stuff that you know, and and and
Speaker 1: more unique stuff that will that will share because otherwise,
Speaker 1: like we would inundate fishing Wildlife Service service with like hey,
Speaker 1: here's a here's another picture of a bear on this trail,
Speaker 1: you know, and and follow the bear through the trail
Speaker 1: that um, you know that they're going on or you
Speaker 1: know whatever, you know, whatever significant wildlife So it's just
Speaker 1: like the more interesting things like our guys know, like
Speaker 1: if they see a big cat you know, um, you
Speaker 1: know jaguar specifically, um or you know, a mountain lion
Speaker 1: in in something a unique case that that gets relate
Speaker 1: to me, so then we can relay it to our
Speaker 1: land management partners. Yeah. Let's say an agent has a
Speaker 1: buddy who's a hunter, great bund and he sees like
Speaker 1: a a camera. Is there anything wrong with him being like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know down kind of in that little zone of
Speaker 1: this creek there. I can tell you they're tight lip
Speaker 1: because me and Eddie when we were hunting Haviline and
Speaker 1: we tried to hit up some Border patrol dudes and
Speaker 1: they were like, you like, no intel, these guys don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on. Well here's the thing that hunter
Speaker 1: that's exactly like one of the things that you don't
Speaker 1: know where any but one of the things that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people, um, you know don't maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't want to say they don't realize,
Speaker 1: but but sometimes you've got to remember is like our
Speaker 1: job as a border patrol agent is a pretty I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say it, sorry, Chief, I'm gonna say this, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: You're given okay, you're you're hired and you're given you're
Speaker 1: given training, how to sign cut, how to do this
Speaker 1: job out and you know, in God's country right, all
Speaker 1: across the southern, southern and northern border. Right, you're sometimes
Speaker 1: you're alone, sometimes you're you have you know, you have
Speaker 1: a partner to to work with you out there, and
Speaker 1: you come back and you do it again every day. Right.
Speaker 1: You gotta be a little crazy to do that kind
Speaker 1: of job, you know. And at the same time, you
Speaker 1: also have to be an avid outdoorsman or outdoors woman.
Speaker 1: You have to love the environment, have some kind of
Speaker 1: love and affinity towards working outdoors to do the job
Speaker 1: that we do, which back to your question about hey,
Speaker 1: where's this big you know, where's this coups or where's
Speaker 1: this you know heard at? Well, most of us are
Speaker 1: hunters too, and so we don't want to give up,
Speaker 1: but we may know as a good spot more these
Speaker 1: guys played dumb about the havelin. I'm like, so best,
Speaker 1: I can tell you've been out here some number of days.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a good thing about bobar T religion
Speaker 1: and and it's it doesn't matter whether it's because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of times a lot of ortlins when they're
Speaker 1: working a load of dope, they'll go down and burn
Speaker 1: it just so the other bobard t religian doesn't catch it.
Speaker 1: So it's the same thing when it comes to hunters,
Speaker 1: right and hunting boblis won't tell you a thing because
Speaker 1: they'd rather fail and not get it than see you
Speaker 1: be successful. Well, now I'll be like seeing any havelina first,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like, so you work for the Border Patrol,
Speaker 1: and I'll see in his eyes, dude and asked him
Speaker 1: about the halina. If you let's let's talk about more
Speaker 1: about wildlife in the in the border. It's still real
Speaker 1: quick just to interject that the biggest balloons those are
Speaker 1: those are called the acronym for those tars, it's tethered
Speaker 1: aerostat Radar systems UM. Those are actually primarily for UM
Speaker 1: sensing the low air domain, So for aircraft aircraft sensor.
Speaker 1: They're not watching you pick your nose in at. There's
Speaker 1: other stuff quote unquote on their way with other other
Speaker 1: sensing equipment on those UM, but the primary their primary
Speaker 1: role is for is basically low low aircraft systems. You know,
Speaker 1: spent time in ultra lights, helicopters one that's going on
Speaker 1: low space and the and then individual uh su ad
Speaker 1: the smaller V I had a friend of mine in
Speaker 1: the military. I can't hear if you talk about Iraq Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: he said they used a lot of those for that purpose.
Speaker 1: Absolutely the exact same capability tracking aircraft and drones and stuff. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: I've brought a bunch of times over the years to
Speaker 1: listeners the idea, especially when the idea of the of
Speaker 1: an impenetrable wall right became an issue, I would bring up.
Speaker 1: I would bring up when considering all of the factors,
Speaker 1: a thing to consider is wildlife movement. Okay, not in
Speaker 1: in people get riled up and they get piste to
Speaker 1: even mentioned it because how dare you question the legitimacy
Speaker 1: of it of the wall. I'm like, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying it's a thing to consider. But the more
Speaker 1: I think about it, too, I'd have to imagine that
Speaker 1: there are with just the amount of human traffic, human
Speaker 1: activity in terms of people crossing illegally, people trying to
Speaker 1: catch the people crossing illegally. Um, all the vehicular traffic.
Speaker 1: Then you add in the wall. It has to have
Speaker 1: big implications for wildlife. Um, I'm gonna answer this little
Speaker 1: bit in Charles. You can correct me when I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty sure i'll be wrong. I'll just talk
Speaker 1: about this section in human Arizona. So one of one
Speaker 1: of the problems you have in Arizona is what's the
Speaker 1: lizard that's down there that do you have to avoid? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's the the HeLa monster, and yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's they have these lizards at all over and we're warrnted,
Speaker 1: you know when you see him stop the run over
Speaker 1: things like that. So the wall that that's built in
Speaker 1: Numa doesn't impede that animal's ability to go back and
Speaker 1: forth or or or or in any direction. Lizard a lizard, right, well,
Speaker 1: I think it or more thinking about large like like
Speaker 1: it certainly does it affect the the ability for them. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm gonna let you answer they because
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to get into trouble. That's okay,
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, Um, yes, there's I mean, is there some
Speaker 1: kind of impedence, Yes, that's I mean, it's a wall,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, it's a border wall system though. Two.
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing I think a lot of people don't,
Speaker 1: um don't take into account for, is that, like it's
Speaker 1: where we aren't DHS isn't trying to put up just
Speaker 1: a border wall. We're trying to put up a border
Speaker 1: wall system. UM. And that does so when when you say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's that wall, it's that wall, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just we're talking about specifically just that one component
Speaker 1: of what should be a system, which is the wall.
Speaker 1: There is an enforcement zone or you know, some some
Speaker 1: way for for an agent to traverse that area, along
Speaker 1: with technology, so all three of those things working together, okay,
Speaker 1: to to help maintain the safety of the border. It's
Speaker 1: essentially of the nation. Um. And and so when you
Speaker 1: look at just the wall as the impedance, yes, there
Speaker 1: is that impedance, but Border Patrol, DHS, CBP, UM we
Speaker 1: are working with the land management agencies to address and
Speaker 1: mitigate some of that impedance on the environment and the wildlife.
Speaker 1: For example, UM, you know in low water crossings, we
Speaker 1: have you know, gates there so we can allow for
Speaker 1: the for the sheet flow of the water during rainy
Speaker 1: seasons or outside of rainy seasons, if there's an event,
Speaker 1: we can you know, open up those open up those
Speaker 1: gates to allow for UM for the water to flow,
Speaker 1: which you know also allows for for wildlife to cross through. UM.
Speaker 1: Along with that, there's also I just got back UM
Speaker 1: about two weeks ago, UM maybe a week ago out.
Speaker 1: My dates are running and running together. It's been busy,
Speaker 1: but we just got back from actually ground truthing UM
Speaker 1: what are called small wildlife patch passages UM. So it's
Speaker 1: like what Chief Fortunato was talking about in Yuma. It's
Speaker 1: one of the places where this originated from. As they
Speaker 1: were putting a putting in. Their border wall system is
Speaker 1: along the border UM. Even though they're they're ballard's on
Speaker 1: the border that are you know about every four four
Speaker 1: inches UM there's a a circular ballard and so you
Speaker 1: have a four inch gap essentially that lets the border
Speaker 1: patrol see what's going on south. So it provides some
Speaker 1: visual security for us of what's going on south. But
Speaker 1: it's just a four inch gap UMUS sector started at
Speaker 1: the bottom putting in UM larger gaps. I think there's
Speaker 1: like it's like a six inch by two inch gaps
Speaker 1: so they notch out a portion every I don't know
Speaker 1: how many feet of that um uh of the ballard
Speaker 1: to allow for that lizard to freely go through it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be impeded in Tucson sector. And they're they're doing
Speaker 1: it in the in the newer UM border wall system
Speaker 1: that that they started putting in UM that there was
Speaker 1: it was placed in on pause on the January twenty
Speaker 1: but within the system UM we started putting in small
Speaker 1: wall life passages. So we in order to even put
Speaker 1: those in, we got with Department of Interior and Department
Speaker 1: of Agriculture, you know, being for service essentially, UM Fish
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service,
Speaker 1: all the land managers that were along the border. We
Speaker 1: got with those land managers and we talked with them about, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to put in these small wildlife passages on
Speaker 1: the border wall system to allow for to to better
Speaker 1: allow for wildlife to migrate through the border wall system.
Speaker 1: And what we did was we let them pick the
Speaker 1: locations of where they think it would be adequate to
Speaker 1: put these UM small wildlife passages in. But then we
Speaker 1: also got with them physically went out to the border
Speaker 1: and said Okay, this is a GPS location that you
Speaker 1: said you would like to see this passage because they
Speaker 1: had the information on where wildlife would reverse and if
Speaker 1: you know, there were some places where where they looked
Speaker 1: and it was already in a wash, there was already
Speaker 1: a you know, a gate we were putting in there.
Speaker 1: So we would say, hey, you know what if we
Speaker 1: move this up into a little bit higher ground. That way,
Speaker 1: it's going to be in a place where wildlife can
Speaker 1: can pass through, and it's not a wasted location because
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's already a gate at the bottom
Speaker 1: of this washlests maybe put a little bit higher. When
Speaker 1: you say small wildlife passage, like what sized animal are
Speaker 1: we are like a deer could pass through this or
Speaker 1: not a deer is I wouldn't consider a deer small wildlife. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm talking the size of the hole wildlife as small
Speaker 1: as yeah, the kind of wildlife. So like it's essentially
Speaker 1: the gap is going to be about eight and a
Speaker 1: half by eleven um. So you know, and really when
Speaker 1: you're when you're thinking about it or when you look
Speaker 1: at that, that's a pretty significant amount of space because,
Speaker 1: like I said, the original gap is only four inches
Speaker 1: approximately four inches, UM, And so I just don't want
Speaker 1: anybody to go down there and go, oh that trust
Speaker 1: guy said, it's you know, four inches, and this gap
Speaker 1: is three point seven five you know, or it's four
Speaker 1: point two whatever, but it's approximately four inches, right, UM.
Speaker 1: So we're essentially making that gap almost doubling the size
Speaker 1: the width, and then we're increasing it, you know, eleven
Speaker 1: eleven inches up. Um. So we came to that. It
Speaker 1: was years back, UM when they actually came to the
Speaker 1: reasoning why. I'm not exactly sure what the reason why. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's that the reality is the reality is that most
Speaker 1: normal human beings that are going to be coming through
Speaker 1: the international border, they are going to be able to
Speaker 1: fit that. But the amount of wildlife that you can
Speaker 1: that can fit through that is you know, greatly increased
Speaker 1: because just from from putting that kind of of um
Speaker 1: passage allowable for the wildlife to go through. Imagine a
Speaker 1: chart that has two lines on it. One is UM. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say one line is spending spending at the spending
Speaker 1: on border security, US spending on border security in the
Speaker 1: southern border, and the other line is um traffic across
Speaker 1: said border. They rise in tandem or don't they We're
Speaker 1: spending more and more and more, but more and more
Speaker 1: people are coming across. If you like, let's say you
Speaker 1: drop the spending line with the other line increase even more.
Speaker 1: The gap would the gap would just increase? It be
Speaker 1: like like if there was no no obstruction whatsoever you
Speaker 1: feel it would be like I'm I asking an obvious question,
Speaker 1: no obstruction at all would be more than whatever million people? Yes,
Speaker 1: I hop, I mean I have to think so again.
Speaker 1: It goes back to that, like I talked about the consequence,
Speaker 1: right that you have to have the border wall system
Speaker 1: and and and tied with the consequent system and the
Speaker 1: criminal and and and being able to charge them criminally.
Speaker 1: All that is what's going to help bring those numbers down.
Speaker 1: Without it, it's just going to continue to fly because
Speaker 1: there has to be a consequence, and that consequence has
Speaker 1: to be greater than the amount of money that smugglers
Speaker 1: can make. M that's the reality. Where do you you see?
Speaker 1: I don't even want to ask because you won't be
Speaker 1: able to answer it, but I think I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you where we sit right now? On consequence? Um,
Speaker 1: I'm doing the best job I can within the Haver
Speaker 1: sector a R to deliver the highest consequence possible to
Speaker 1: all those that break the laws that I'm authorized and
Speaker 1: forced and Title eight, Title nineteen and Title so we
Speaker 1: we levy Title twenty nine UH fees. If you come
Speaker 1: across you and you illegal, you come across the border,
Speaker 1: if you're Canadian, you come across the border through POE,
Speaker 1: we apprehend you. We're gonna deliver your consequence either through
Speaker 1: Title forty two or title to Title eight. So Title
Speaker 1: forty two expel them back, or Title eight charged them
Speaker 1: with illegal entry in the United States, and I'm also
Speaker 1: gonna hit you with a five thousand dollar fine for
Speaker 1: evading inspection at the port of entry. So we're doing
Speaker 1: everything we can to deliver the highest possible consequence that
Speaker 1: I can, knowing that the U. S. Attorney in the
Speaker 1: State of Montana is going to charge. They have they
Speaker 1: have their responsibilities, and they have their prosecution guidelines. I
Speaker 1: have those prosecution guidelines, and I do everything I can
Speaker 1: to prosecute and deliver consequence to anybody that enters or
Speaker 1: any crime that's committed within my a O R within
Speaker 1: those prosecution guidelines. Do you get more in trouble do
Speaker 1: you getting more trouble from crossing the northern border than
Speaker 1: you do the southern border because it more illegal? No,
Speaker 1: I mean a board or whether you cross, whether you
Speaker 1: cross in Mexico or whether you cross in Canada, or
Speaker 1: whether you for whatever reason, if you can do it,
Speaker 1: you can aid going through customs that you know, the
Speaker 1: international airport. It's it's all the same that the laws
Speaker 1: of the same. You're gonna get treated the same way.
Speaker 1: You can get treated the same way. Really really, yes,
Speaker 1: why are you so skeptical? I just feel like some dude,
Speaker 1: like with neferry, like some do with nefarious intentions, snuck
Speaker 1: across the northern border and gets picked up. I just
Speaker 1: feel like it's gonna be he's gonna have a different
Speaker 1: outcome than someone that did the same thing on the
Speaker 1: southern border. Well I wor yeah, I would have to think,
Speaker 1: because it's just gonna be Like I just feel like
Speaker 1: it's gonna be worse. No. So again that goes down
Speaker 1: to the problems you'll be given a trial date and
Speaker 1: turned loose. Um. I guess it depends on on the
Speaker 1: on on the parameters of the case. Right. So in
Speaker 1: some of those things, right, So as as the chief
Speaker 1: of the Border Patrol. The only thing that I can
Speaker 1: do is interdict and charge and and build the best
Speaker 1: case that I possibly can for that person to be
Speaker 1: actually be held in custody. That responsibility falls to the
Speaker 1: Director of Immigration UH Customs Enforcement. So the Director of
Speaker 1: of Immigration Customers Enforcement is housed in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: It's his responsibility to find space for whoever I apprehend.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't have the space, he has the authority
Speaker 1: to release that person into the into the country with
Speaker 1: a with a court date. So I have no control
Speaker 1: over that. I can utilize whatever network I have and
Speaker 1: whatever arm twisting I can, or whatever pleading I can,
Speaker 1: whatever relationship I have with them. Hey, this is the
Speaker 1: one guy I think I need, that you really need
Speaker 1: to hold. But ultimately it's his decision on whether or
Speaker 1: not he holds him. And then the same thing when
Speaker 1: it comes to the actual consequence. I have no control
Speaker 1: whether the Assistant U S Attorney in in in Missoula,
Speaker 1: Montana prosecutes that person that we have that we apprehend
Speaker 1: it in charge. All I can do, and this is
Speaker 1: what I tell my agents all the time. Our responsibility
Speaker 1: is to to protect the home land. And if somebody
Speaker 1: violates that protection and violates a law. Our job is
Speaker 1: to apprehend them and charge them. Once we're done with that,
Speaker 1: our bullets downrange. Everything else that happens after that, we
Speaker 1: have zero control over They whether they get held is
Speaker 1: up to somebody else's responsibility. And whether or not they
Speaker 1: get charged, or whether that that charge is dismissed or
Speaker 1: whether that charge is plead out. Is that the responsibility
Speaker 1: of somebody else. I hear from friends of mine and
Speaker 1: law enforcement that sometimes people will develop, like people in
Speaker 1: the field will develop a little bit of fatigue about
Speaker 1: doing their job and not seeing not being happy with
Speaker 1: you mentioned the down the downrange bullet. Yeah, what happens
Speaker 1: to it wants it gets downrange that it leads to
Speaker 1: fatigue and a little bit of ambivalence. Well, it's and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna speak for for the agents that I
Speaker 1: supervise and and and have her and and it's probably
Speaker 1: typical of most border choices. Is probably even the four
Speaker 1: of us sitting in this room as a border of
Speaker 1: tal agent. It's just not good enough to apprehend them
Speaker 1: the charge and we want to see, we want to
Speaker 1: see something happen to them. And because we're all type
Speaker 1: a personalities, and and because we believe in protecting the homeland,
Speaker 1: and and we believe that that as part of doing
Speaker 1: that job is is bringing a consequence to somebody that
Speaker 1: breaks the law. And and yes, that the fatigue does
Speaker 1: come in because all in all, and you guys correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, an agent gets sick and tired
Speaker 1: of doing the best job that they possibly can to
Speaker 1: see them just walk away with so uh and and
Speaker 1: and it's not just the border of trolles like you said,
Speaker 1: it's it's happens all the way across law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 1: It even happened when I was a police officer in Colorado.
Speaker 1: You would charge things, and you know often the attorneys
Speaker 1: that that decide how things go besides the the ultimate
Speaker 1: they that happens with that case. So I know that
Speaker 1: that is one of the big challenges that were facing
Speaker 1: in the Border trol is that our Borbatrol agents are
Speaker 1: working hard every single day. And and they voiced to
Speaker 1: me that there they're sick and tired of working hard
Speaker 1: and and not seeing a consequence delivered. And that's my
Speaker 1: job is to try to make sure that those consequences
Speaker 1: are delivered. I gotta I know where this happened. I
Speaker 1: don't wanna get too many details, but I got a
Speaker 1: friend who, uh his body owns some retail space and
Speaker 1: he had a woman leave. Uh. He rents his retail
Speaker 1: space to a major um drug store. Okay, he watched
Speaker 1: a customer of his leave the store and get mugged
Speaker 1: and have her bags and purse stolen. And he couldn't
Speaker 1: get the cops that were there interested, and that this
Speaker 1: is there is nothing to do with your department. He
Speaker 1: couldn't get the cops interested, and the cops said to him, oh,
Speaker 1: what would you like me to do? Apprehend him? Well,
Speaker 1: I can tell you the apathy, right yeah, And I
Speaker 1: get that that's that's a police officer he's haven't talking
Speaker 1: to I can. I can honestly say that if that
Speaker 1: of a board of Chile Agion was standing there, I
Speaker 1: guarantee that person would have been apprehended, whether they were
Speaker 1: on dude or not, right James, Right, Charles, they would
Speaker 1: have jumped in and they would have that guy would
Speaker 1: have been apprehended. Steve on your on your what you
Speaker 1: described as far as like budget investment versus you know,
Speaker 1: the the increasing flow like they're like they kind of
Speaker 1: go hand in hand with one another. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's there. And and anyone could look up the CBPS
Speaker 1: as custom board protraction statistics for every fiscal year. Um,
Speaker 1: you know budgets. Uh, I'm just just speaking plainly. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure government budgets for all matter of departments go
Speaker 1: up year after year. That's just seems to be the
Speaker 1: way I think the federal government. But you know the
Speaker 1: apprehensions and encounters that we see um in the war
Speaker 1: patrol and CPP wide, it's it's very much is related
Speaker 1: to the push factors from where people are leaving from,
Speaker 1: whether it's socio economic, environmental Uh. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, communism, issues of communism Venezuela right now,
Speaker 1: an earthquake in Haiti, when any one of any one
Speaker 1: of a combination these factors can push a large population
Speaker 1: in people out to find refuge someplace else. Um. Combined
Speaker 1: with how whatever political parties in power in the United
Speaker 1: States any one time, how their priorities are loaded against
Speaker 1: the laws that are on the books, which typically do
Speaker 1: not change. It's just the priorities that they put in
Speaker 1: place on how those laws are enforced. It is what
Speaker 1: becomes the poll fit. That's an interesting point. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: interesting point that the laws don't change, it's just how
Speaker 1: you how you prioritize them changes. Well. So while while
Speaker 1: budget probably increases year after year, I would say, at
Speaker 1: least for homeland security because of of what it means
Speaker 1: um the the the the encounters will vary upon the
Speaker 1: combination of those push and pull factors. So it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a correlation between budget goes up apprehensions encounters are
Speaker 1: going to go up. That's not necessarily the case. It
Speaker 1: will flow depending on those factors. Do agents that you
Speaker 1: guys know, do people start to feel a little bit
Speaker 1: of whiplash about changing priorities year to year? Is it?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Is it? Is it a
Speaker 1: cause of I've been in just about twenty five years now.
Speaker 1: I think I'm used to it. I've I've kind of
Speaker 1: chameleoned to what what we're doing. It's nothing, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just used to it. And and and it's you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's just the way a government. We're not the
Speaker 1: only people impacted by this. It's every single agency. Uh,
Speaker 1: I know, you guys have had a myriad of of
Speaker 1: of land management experts on on the show over the years,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they have. Uh you know, how long
Speaker 1: has it been since since for service or BLM has
Speaker 1: had like a budget to sustain roads and whatnot? I
Speaker 1: mean like the Department of waiting decades just because things
Speaker 1: like homeland security and and international terrorism when I probably
Speaker 1: got in the way of those budgets being fulfilled and
Speaker 1: who knows how long. So it's it's just not it's
Speaker 1: just not us. So every every every every department and agency,
Speaker 1: even the federal government has has has to evolve to
Speaker 1: whatever the priorities are. Yeah, and I think it does.
Speaker 1: It just comes down to the length of time and service. Again,
Speaker 1: I've been in almost twenty six years and in twenty
Speaker 1: six years, I've seen what five presidents, So that change
Speaker 1: of response of of has happened that many times as
Speaker 1: as compared to somebody has only been in the agency
Speaker 1: maybe three or four years that come into it. This
Speaker 1: is all they know. They just don't have that concept
Speaker 1: of of it's an ebbs and flows kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, the reality is is that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: how we how we can deliver, how we work comes
Speaker 1: in in line with what the agents with the administration
Speaker 1: wants us to do. So a lot of that does
Speaker 1: come into link the service. Those guys that are younger
Speaker 1: are those agents that have been a little bit less
Speaker 1: amount of time struggle with a little bit more than
Speaker 1: folks that have what they perceive as a real change
Speaker 1: in direction. Right, do you have a hard time finding agents?
Speaker 1: Is a tough recruitment. Um, So recruitment has has has
Speaker 1: been a struggle, not just for the border troll but
Speaker 1: I think law enforcement, uh nationwide. Right, it's uh the
Speaker 1: border of trolling particular, Like Charles said, you have to
Speaker 1: be a borda tal agent. You have to be willing
Speaker 1: to go out and work in the outdoors and be
Speaker 1: outdoors and not be not being next to bathrooms and
Speaker 1: and be willing to to lay in with ticks and
Speaker 1: scorpions and spiders and god forbid snakes and all those
Speaker 1: other things that come along. And it takes a certain
Speaker 1: kind of a person to want to do that. And Um,
Speaker 1: the other thing that we're running into is this is
Speaker 1: this is a generation issue right now, right, Um, the
Speaker 1: generation of folks sitting around this table have a concept
Speaker 1: of hard work and true grit, and they're willing to
Speaker 1: go out and do that type of work. The generation
Speaker 1: nowadays is not that they don't want to work hard.
Speaker 1: They just want to work as hard as they can
Speaker 1: for as little hours as possible and get as much
Speaker 1: money as right, so that they can go do that
Speaker 1: so they can go enjoy life. Right. They don't want
Speaker 1: to they don't want to live to work. They want
Speaker 1: to work as little as possible and make as much
Speaker 1: money as they possibly can so they can go fish
Speaker 1: and go kayaking, go hiking, world travel, do those kind
Speaker 1: of things. So trying to find people that want to
Speaker 1: do both of those things is becoming difficult. Speaking of
Speaker 1: that is there is there places around the country that
Speaker 1: are like choice posts for border patrol agents or just
Speaker 1: employees in general. Places. Yeah, like places like that's the place,
Speaker 1: So I guess it depends on the person. Right. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of folks that are here in Montana. Part
Speaker 1: of the reason why they wanted to come to Montana
Speaker 1: is because of the of the ability to do that
Speaker 1: kind of things. Um, I think a lot of folks
Speaker 1: live in Arizona so that they can have those kind
Speaker 1: of concept. There's a lot of folks that want to
Speaker 1: go to the Rio Grand Valley because their fishermen they
Speaker 1: want to go do the offshore fishing and things like that.
Speaker 1: Um um, so yeah, there's a lot of folks that
Speaker 1: want to do that. The problem with the border, which
Speaker 1: told that most law enforcement agents don't have, is we're
Speaker 1: constrained by geography and that when you come into the
Speaker 1: United States Border Patrol and you get hired, you're going
Speaker 1: to one of the nine Southwest border sectors for your
Speaker 1: first assignment. So yeah, you're not don't You don't start now.
Speaker 1: And in fact, in fact I went north to to
Speaker 1: Graham Array, Minnesota in two thousand one. It took me
Speaker 1: six years to get there. They said, they send you
Speaker 1: to the south. They yeah, you go to the south.
Speaker 1: So when you come on and the difference between now
Speaker 1: and and when we all came in, I didn't get
Speaker 1: a choice. I got a fed X men saity, congratulations,
Speaker 1: you're hired by the U. S. Bard Patrol. You're going
Speaker 1: to McCallan, Texas. And I had to look on the
Speaker 1: map and said, where the hell is McAllen, Texas? On
Speaker 1: an atlas, on an atlas, not on my phone. I
Speaker 1: had to look on an atlas to see where McAllen,
Speaker 1: Texas was um, but nowadays they get a chance to
Speaker 1: pick so as they go through the process, and of
Speaker 1: course they have the technology at the tips of their fingers,
Speaker 1: they can look on and see while you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to go to Presidio, Texas because all you
Speaker 1: gotta do is look on the map and see where Presidio,
Speaker 1: Texas is and realize it's eight hours from anywhere, right,
Speaker 1: So well, I'd rather be in San Diego, California, right.
Speaker 1: And so that comes down to the mentality too, because
Speaker 1: we're going out and and cabin these kind of people,
Speaker 1: and and and we've got folks and it happens today
Speaker 1: that are from New York that don't even have a
Speaker 1: driver's license. They get a driver's license to get a
Speaker 1: job as a board troll agent. So they've never driven
Speaker 1: a car until they go to the board troll Academy
Speaker 1: and we teach them defensive driving and high speed tactics.
Speaker 1: When when I showed when I showed up in Dorio
Speaker 1: from the Bronx New York, the everyone and del Rey
Speaker 1: always asking me, you know you drive, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm driving to some sixteen what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: In the opposite side too. I'm from I'm from Colorado,
Speaker 1: grew up and it was born in Reason, Colorado, and
Speaker 1: I went to becoming Texas and one of my classmates
Speaker 1: sitting on the plane with he's freaking out. It was
Speaker 1: the first time he's he's twenty eight years or first
Speaker 1: time in twenty eight years he's ever been on a
Speaker 1: plane and left the state of Texas. Huh, never been
Speaker 1: out of state of Texas in twenty eight years until
Speaker 1: he got on a plane to fly to Charleston, South
Speaker 1: Carolina to go be a bordual agent. I read that
Speaker 1: he's true, man, that someone from like a citizen of
Speaker 1: Texas is more likely to leave the state than the
Speaker 1: citizen of any other state or some ship like that.
Speaker 1: But didn't make sense. I thought about what about people
Speaker 1: Rhode Island who can't go get a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: without leaving the state. Yeah, I shouldn't need harung it up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the recruitment, I have a high likelihood of going
Speaker 1: on vacation or something I do. So recruitment is tough
Speaker 1: because we're trying to we're trying to have that dynamic
Speaker 1: of folks that want to go out and work in
Speaker 1: the outdoors, and and and and and encountered large groups
Speaker 1: of people. Right as as a police officer in Colorado,
Speaker 1: you know, the largest apprehension arrest I have ever made
Speaker 1: was maybe two people at a time. And after going
Speaker 1: down to McCallen, Texas, when I first apprehend hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty people. So how do you go from and you're
Speaker 1: the only one, right, So how do you go from
Speaker 1: maintaining control of a hundred fifty people? Because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: if they want you, they're gonna take you. So it
Speaker 1: was kind of funny. You can do things like So
Speaker 1: what I did with them is the first thing I
Speaker 1: want to do is identify whether from Mexico from another country.
Speaker 1: So a hundred and fifty people walking out singing the
Speaker 1: Mexican national anthem just to keep them occupied, because it's
Speaker 1: the only way I can control a hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 1: I had two sets of handcuffs. Who am I gonna pick? Right?
Speaker 1: You just get them all singing the national anthem as
Speaker 1: you're walking out out of the trail too for the
Speaker 1: bus to come pick them up. So it's it's you
Speaker 1: gotta It's an interesting dynamic to find people that really
Speaker 1: want to go out and step in and do that
Speaker 1: type of law enforcement work, especially when they can go
Speaker 1: work for Bozeman p D and patrol here in Bozeman,
Speaker 1: or even working in Denver, Colorado, or Kansas City, Missouri
Speaker 1: and and just patrol and have backup thirty seconds away
Speaker 1: for us, backups in in a lot of cases minutes, ten,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes away. So how many agents do you guys
Speaker 1: lose on like every year in the line of duty,
Speaker 1: the ebbs and flows, we lost almost fifty two CBP wide. Uh,
Speaker 1: probably because of COVID in the last couple of years. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we're at two or one. I think we're
Speaker 1: at one or two so far for for this year.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's up and down, right, It's up
Speaker 1: and down. There's there's no way for us to depict that.
Speaker 1: What's uh, what's the pathway into that line of work
Speaker 1: to board patrol? You know, like how do people how
Speaker 1: do people flow? Right? Um? So Uh, you wake up
Speaker 1: one day and he'd be like, man, I want to
Speaker 1: I want to join the U. S. Border Patrol. There's
Speaker 1: a variety of ways that people people get involved into it.
Speaker 1: Mean myself, I mean I grew up in a in
Speaker 1: a you know, in a neighborhood in in New York
Speaker 1: City where I mean most of the guys that I
Speaker 1: knew you grew up became a cop, fireman or or
Speaker 1: construction And I was going after the police route and
Speaker 1: taking police exams all up and down the East coast,
Speaker 1: the North Atlantic coast, and uh and Boordahl just happened
Speaker 1: to be the first one to to send me a
Speaker 1: letter of acceptance. So I jumped in blind and it
Speaker 1: was the best thing I ever did. UM. But I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's there's you know, there's uh c J
Speaker 1: programs across the country that that you know, try to
Speaker 1: try to place their students into different different law enforcement paths. Um.
Speaker 1: And then for us, I mean, the third of our
Speaker 1: workforce or or our veterans, so it's a natural about
Speaker 1: third of our war of the cbp A workforces is veterans,
Speaker 1: and so it's a natural transition. Plus they carry over
Speaker 1: a lot of their benefits whatnot. So if they're mindful
Speaker 1: of that, they're able to bring over their federal benefits
Speaker 1: and time and service from the from their armed services
Speaker 1: to the board. You need to add that to your retirement, Yes, oh, no, kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we we had a lot of folks that want
Speaker 1: to jump from state or or or local law enforcement
Speaker 1: the federal. So the pay is a little bit better
Speaker 1: on the fideral side it is in the state. But
Speaker 1: to your point about recruiting, it's a it's it's a
Speaker 1: like all I think was a referendum on on law
Speaker 1: enforcement goes without saying, you know, nationwide, it was it
Speaker 1: was a you know, it forced agencies to take a
Speaker 1: look at what law you know, policing in general meant
Speaker 1: were no exception um, and you know, uh and and
Speaker 1: and focusing on how to bring in uh. You guys
Speaker 1: look at reactivating hunters. You know, it's one of your
Speaker 1: tenants that you guys, we were very much in the
Speaker 1: same situation. Actually, I think all industry is looking to
Speaker 1: trying to get people out of back to work in
Speaker 1: some form or fashion. But we're no, we're because of
Speaker 1: how scrutinized law enforcement as a whole was from now. Um,
Speaker 1: it's made it tough and and whiles you know, as
Speaker 1: they say that the economy is kind of difficult right now. Um,
Speaker 1: the you know, my daughter, you know, good better and different,
Speaker 1: had the choice of of uh you know, going to school,
Speaker 1: uh go finding a blue college job, going to college,
Speaker 1: or trying to get on YouTube and make a million
Speaker 1: dollars a year or or something like that. Like that,
Speaker 1: that's an actual viable option, which blows my mind nowadays.
Speaker 1: Um so uh not only competing about the changing sentiment
Speaker 1: towards law enforcement and enticing people um to go in
Speaker 1: that career field, but also uh making it a viable
Speaker 1: option to all these other things that are that are
Speaker 1: you know, we've never would have perceived we're at their
Speaker 1: disposable to make money uh thirty years ago or something
Speaker 1: like that. So uh but but I think anyone who
Speaker 1: has that sense uh for us a particularly speaking bores,
Speaker 1: anyone has that sense of adventure um uh or or
Speaker 1: wants to you know, all the all the areas that
Speaker 1: we talked about. Charles mentioned God's Country. If you want
Speaker 1: to make that you're offer since this is a natural
Speaker 1: way to a natural way to live in that in
Speaker 1: that kind of office environment every day where you get
Speaker 1: to experience these the great outdoors and protect it, even
Speaker 1: though maybe maybe that's not your primary mission is to
Speaker 1: protect the actual land, but just by this, just by
Speaker 1: your actual presence on the landscape, you're protecting it and
Speaker 1: and it takes the rights type of person to do that.
Speaker 1: And there's still a lot of those folks out there
Speaker 1: that have that, that are wired towards that that career field.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted to get a job riding horseback
Speaker 1: through uh Big Ben National Park, there's a way to
Speaker 1: do that. And they get the camp out actually spoken
Speaker 1: does a lot of a lot of details where that
Speaker 1: where they go remote with horse patrol for weeks at
Speaker 1: a time. If you want, if you're gonna go camp
Speaker 1: out in in in the Glacier National Park here in Montana,
Speaker 1: we got details you can do that. If you want
Speaker 1: to spend time in the b w C, the Botder
Speaker 1: Water Canoe Area in Minnesota, there's an eight you can
Speaker 1: go out there and spend I've spent ten days because
Speaker 1: I spent I spent ten days odds leading through the
Speaker 1: boundary waters. Really yeah, as an agent, as an agent
Speaker 1: because it's not because it's non motorized, because non motorized,
Speaker 1: no mechanized. And what was you what's the craziest thing
Speaker 1: in those ten years that you spent up there that
Speaker 1: you encountered as far as something crossing the border that
Speaker 1: you had to interdict. Um, the craziest thing would have
Speaker 1: been body carries with diamonds in the boundary waters. In
Speaker 1: the boundary waters. Yeah, what did you call me again?
Speaker 1: Body carries? Body carriers carrying diamonds. So trying to dodge terror?
Speaker 1: Are they well? Because they could They were getting head
Speaker 1: at the port of entry, so they were taking them
Speaker 1: to the one section and on the Canadian side where
Speaker 1: they can actually get vehicles to and then they were
Speaker 1: bringing them across in in canoes. But it's not illegal
Speaker 1: to have a diamond. They're trying to avoid what the customs,
Speaker 1: the taxes? No kid? Yeah, were they in canoes. They
Speaker 1: were in canoes. Econom in canoes. They're in canoes. Did
Speaker 1: they seem they knew? They seem why they knew what
Speaker 1: they were doing? Uh? Could you pick them out from
Speaker 1: a mile away? You're like those guys I'm sticking out.
Speaker 1: I believe they beat us nine times before we caught them.
Speaker 1: Really back to that, Yeah, yeah, I have no clue,
Speaker 1: but they I believe when we caught them they were
Speaker 1: shocked to see us. So they had been successful on
Speaker 1: multiple occasions. M Yeah, I want another like a couple
Speaker 1: of highlights or like craziest events of my career on
Speaker 1: the border was in Texas, so a lot of those
Speaker 1: high fence, high fence ranches down there with all sorts
Speaker 1: of animals small over the planet, and so getting attecked
Speaker 1: by EMUs was one of my early and finding out
Speaker 1: they like to pull your buttons off your shirt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a strange thing if you ever never seen one
Speaker 1: before you're all the wild. But as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: all the you know, the manner of things that that
Speaker 1: they put on those ranches is out there that we
Speaker 1: have to patrol on and you know, seeing a zebra
Speaker 1: or or a you know, a kudu for the first
Speaker 1: time driving around, it kind of blows your mind. M hmm, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. Um when actually when, when Sammy and I
Speaker 1: were back in Laredo working together, there was one night
Speaker 1: and it wasn't me that um that made the apprehension,
Speaker 1: but but we were working one night and we got
Speaker 1: a call and because they didn't the guys in the
Speaker 1: field didn't know who to call um, and we didn't
Speaker 1: know either. We got a call from from an agent
Speaker 1: and and they're like, hey, we're we're out here with
Speaker 1: a group Okay, what's the big deal. You know, you
Speaker 1: guys got thirty and whatever. And then they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have this group, but we have a tiger, remember that.
Speaker 1: And and we're like, what you have a tiger? And yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a group of thirty and one of these
Speaker 1: guys has a tiger. I real, yes, it was a
Speaker 1: baby cub tiger. He was bringing it across because I
Speaker 1: apparently the black market trade and stuff. He was going
Speaker 1: to sell this tiger to Somebody's happen a bunch of times. Parents.
Speaker 1: Parents are real popular in southern part of the parents
Speaker 1: to cans, monkeys, foot traffic, yeah yeah, foot foot and
Speaker 1: and at the bridge trying to the bridges, but but
Speaker 1: also through just carrying in a duffle bag across the
Speaker 1: border for sure. Huh. Kind of monkeys, those those little
Speaker 1: I don't even know what they're called. But the friends
Speaker 1: ones that the confus like a little like a little
Speaker 1: like like I don't know, it's kind of longy that
Speaker 1: you can jump on your shoulders. Yeah, yeah, not like
Speaker 1: a not like a little many tiny you know, you know,
Speaker 1: monkeys from Africa and things like that they were trying
Speaker 1: to bring in. Really, yeah, how could be enough money
Speaker 1: and that to make that worthwhile. If there's money to
Speaker 1: be made, there's trying to sell it. Unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: just just and I don't know, we're probably getting off topic.
Speaker 1: In South Texas use clothings and big things. You see
Speaker 1: palletts of of us clothing, so clothing we would throw away,
Speaker 1: they put in and bind in a pallet and they
Speaker 1: smuggled at south to Mexico. The same thing with chicken
Speaker 1: raw chicken raw, chicken go south because in Mexico they
Speaker 1: charge attacks. They never charge attacks on chicken trying to
Speaker 1: get out of the tax. So they're smuggling chicken south
Speaker 1: into into Mexico. And then we call it rope saw
Speaker 1: to use clothing going south into Mexico for people to buy.
Speaker 1: Use clothing. And funny story in in McAllen Um, we
Speaker 1: had clothing going and we were tired of him, right
Speaker 1: so we said, oh we're gonna, we're gonna bust your palates.
Speaker 1: We we cracked the palletts hundred thousand dollars cash wrapped
Speaker 1: up inside one of the bundles, which was a mistake
Speaker 1: because then every bundle going south was getting cracked open
Speaker 1: by bordal chodes and there was used clothing all over
Speaker 1: the border just turned out to be a nightmare. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of stuff that happens. So whenever something's
Speaker 1: going north, cash is going south. M hmm. When you
Speaker 1: guys found all that money, you probably party that night.
Speaker 1: Avocado is also a big thing, Avocados coming north. People
Speaker 1: smuggling avocados to avoid to avoid tax well to avoid
Speaker 1: taxes and then alvas. The avocados in Mexico are actually
Speaker 1: quite a bit bigger than than you can the California avocados.
Speaker 1: So in Texas avocados are are are pretty big. People
Speaker 1: smuggling avocados cross so if you go you can go
Speaker 1: to Mexico and buy an avocado, but they take out
Speaker 1: the bone. It has to do with the bone. There's
Speaker 1: some sort of agriculture or some disease that's in the
Speaker 1: seed or so they does that by smuggling north because
Speaker 1: they can get more money. And obviously if you hold
Speaker 1: the Mexican avocado next to a California Texan avocados like
Speaker 1: a softball to a baseball. It's so avocados are really popular.
Speaker 1: Cigarettes on the northern border now, cigarettes on the northern ord,
Speaker 1: especially over in in California in New York going north
Speaker 1: or coming south? Uh, both both. They call them two nis.
Speaker 1: You can you go into the Agnosasi territories and buy
Speaker 1: It's really kind of crazy. It's it's the equivalent of
Speaker 1: a of a cart and cigarettes, but they're they're just
Speaker 1: thrown in a bag because they're nondescript. No, my buddy
Speaker 1: had a girlfriend in Canada who had she only had
Speaker 1: one leg, and she would put all kinds of cigarettes
Speaker 1: in her fake leg every time she went across she
Speaker 1: was she'd come, she'd come over to the US and
Speaker 1: then fill her fake leg with a cigarettes to go
Speaker 1: back to Canada. No buddy mind fellow named Kurt. So
Speaker 1: there's if there's money to be made in smuggling it,
Speaker 1: they're gonna do it. We all thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: I never thought the report her. I've just semi harmless.
Speaker 1: And then we start talking about Western boots and things
Speaker 1: like that. Of course, reptile styles and things like that.
Speaker 1: A lot of those things are restricted from coming. And
Speaker 1: you'll see loads of boots coming across, and reptile belts
Speaker 1: and things like that, like wildlife trade. Huh do you
Speaker 1: ever see um when we're down there? Across and they
Speaker 1: have a thing about all the cats like awes lots
Speaker 1: you know what else they got their turtle shells. You
Speaker 1: a big poster, I know the post you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I can't remember all the there's a bunch of birds
Speaker 1: on it. It's just like the wildlife trafficking business. The
Speaker 1: stuff that we the stuff that our counterparts, the office
Speaker 1: field operations, ladies and gents at the bridges that that
Speaker 1: come across the agg specialists that have to go through
Speaker 1: people bringing in fruit and all that stuff. And usually there,
Speaker 1: you know, most of the stuff their time. They're looking
Speaker 1: for pests, you know, anything that any kind of you know,
Speaker 1: beetle or larva or something that's in with like a
Speaker 1: dozen roses or some kind of whatever fruit you're bringing over.
Speaker 1: But they're the ones that run into like the really
Speaker 1: really wacky stuff from like and like stuff that just
Speaker 1: shows up that that these people bring because it's a
Speaker 1: it's a totem or something like that, and it who
Speaker 1: knows where they got some kind of crazy dried up
Speaker 1: and endangered frog from down in Chioppa's, Mexico and then
Speaker 1: bringing up and uh, it's common for for these things
Speaker 1: to just be um part of part of their kid
Speaker 1: that they're bringing with them. Oh well you got no,
Speaker 1: that's better. What do you guys, what do you guys have?
Speaker 1: Do you want to add that we didn't get into, Uh, Charles,
Speaker 1: I think a little bit about um, the efforts on
Speaker 1: the organ pipe pretty yeah, I think. UM. I mean
Speaker 1: one of the cool things like we talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: we you guys, you're you know, you guys talk a
Speaker 1: lot about conservation and and the use of public lands
Speaker 1: and and how you know, UM, you know, how hunting
Speaker 1: and you know, in general, the general population impacts the environment. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that within border patrol,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no doubt about it. Like the job
Speaker 1: that we do, UM, you know, there is an impact
Speaker 1: on it. UM and over the years like an organ
Speaker 1: pipe UM organ pipe Cactus National Monument for those of
Speaker 1: y'all that don't know, it's it's a huge national monument
Speaker 1: on the southern border of Arizona. UM. You know, the
Speaker 1: majority of it, the whole southern border butts the international
Speaker 1: boundary UM with Mexico, and UM. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that had happened over the years, UM
Speaker 1: on that property. UM. One of which was the unfortunate
Speaker 1: death of of UM Chris Sedgley UM and UH and
Speaker 1: and that came about through UM drug trafficking. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that was on the that that was on the monument.
Speaker 1: It was it occurred on the monument UM I believe
Speaker 1: in in two thousand three. I believe. I apologize if
Speaker 1: I don't UM, if I'm getting a date wrong. But
Speaker 1: because of what had happened UM, it actually Department of
Speaker 1: Interior actually put up UM a a border fence on
Speaker 1: their property. So they they installed a vehicle barrier UM
Speaker 1: on there because UM Chris was killed from from cross
Speaker 1: border traffic UM that included a vehicle driving over the
Speaker 1: or driving through the international boundary UM onto the park
Speaker 1: and UM and so again Park Service put up that
Speaker 1: put up that that fence UM and that was just that.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately that that was one of the biggest events. But
Speaker 1: it was a common occurrence that people would drive through
Speaker 1: UM Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. And so there were
Speaker 1: hundreds of UM what what they consider UM what Park
Speaker 1: Service considers you know, UM wildcat roads or unauthorized vehicle
Speaker 1: roads UM. And the majority of of of organ Pipe
Speaker 1: it's designated wilderness so there really shouldn't be too many
Speaker 1: roads unless it's been stipulated within the wilderness designation United
Speaker 1: Nations Protected Site or one of those UM that I'm
Speaker 1: not sure of UM for certain, but I know it's
Speaker 1: it's designated wilderness. And and there was over the years
Speaker 1: because of cross border traffic, hundreds of miles of these
Speaker 1: illegal roads UM. And you know, yeah, did border patrol
Speaker 1: use them? Did the public use them? Yes? Because they
Speaker 1: looked like roads from people just you know, driving across UM.
Speaker 1: We got some funding UM from some from I believe
Speaker 1: it was the UM Secure Fence Act. UM. We got
Speaker 1: some funding to work with Department of Interior UH to
Speaker 1: do some remediation work along the border. One of the
Speaker 1: projects that we chose to UM that we chose we
Speaker 1: jointly worked with Department of Interior National Park Service UM
Speaker 1: on was to UM do some road remediation on organ pipe. UM.
Speaker 1: So what that what that basically entailed is we took
Speaker 1: UH aerial aerial photography of the park. We looked at
Speaker 1: all these roads. We looked at where UM border patrol
Speaker 1: had infrastructure, where the park had infrastructure. UM. What roads
Speaker 1: were the traffic patterns for migration? For illegal migration or
Speaker 1: illegal crossings, um. And we overlaid all those. We got
Speaker 1: together with with Parks are Us and we were like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we got there's all these roads here. We
Speaker 1: have some money to do some remediation. Let's start closing
Speaker 1: some of these roads. And so we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of money on taking these roads where you know, hundreds
Speaker 1: of miles of roads. And we would see that these
Speaker 1: roads were going you know, four or five roads going
Speaker 1: to the same place. Well, you know, really, what's the
Speaker 1: need for that. Let's start closing some of these roads.
Speaker 1: So we use that money to do things like, um,
Speaker 1: what's called I learned the term vertical mulch um where
Speaker 1: you you put you put up stuff on a roadway, UM,
Speaker 1: or you put stuff you you put um, you know,
Speaker 1: foliage and um landscaping on a roadway, so you make
Speaker 1: it look like it's no longer a road and you
Speaker 1: just go as far as like the I can see
Speaker 1: or so like you know, and then you can put
Speaker 1: a sauce. It's it's vertical mulch yeah and so yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, oh, that's that's interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: So so we did that on on a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of roads. It ended up being like two over two
Speaker 1: hundred miles of roads UM on organ pipe that we
Speaker 1: were able to um uh you know, to close off
Speaker 1: and that you know, defragments the landscape. So now the wilderness,
Speaker 1: you know, the wildlife has more of an area to room.
Speaker 1: They don't they aren't like running into road every a
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards or something like that. There's there's more
Speaker 1: area for for for wildlife to thrive and the visitors
Speaker 1: to actually visit and not feel like, you know, they
Speaker 1: feel that, you know, one of the one of the
Speaker 1: characteristics of willderness. They feel that solitude, you know, because
Speaker 1: you are you know, you run into a road when
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of wilderness, you don't really feel
Speaker 1: alone at that point. Sure, right, even you know, even
Speaker 1: though you may not see somebody on that road, you
Speaker 1: you know that that moment is kind of if you
Speaker 1: you know, if you will UM. But yeah, we overall
Speaker 1: we restored like two over two hundred miles of road
Speaker 1: UM that year. UM was for me, fairly significant I
Speaker 1: think for really for for border patrol UM, you know,
Speaker 1: I I hope it was. It was pretty significant because
Speaker 1: that year the border patrol was actually UM given along
Speaker 1: with National Park Service UM and BLM. We were given
Speaker 1: the d O I. West Henry Award, which is an
Speaker 1: award that's typically UM has been given internally UM within
Speaker 1: Department of Interior for environmental stewardship. Yeah, and so it's
Speaker 1: it was the first time that they've ever chosen to
Speaker 1: give it to to an outside agency. UM. It was
Speaker 1: because of that project, and it was yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was part of that was the major reason, because of
Speaker 1: that project, because of the restoration UM benefits from that project.
Speaker 1: That ties into what I was asking about just the
Speaker 1: amount of UM activity in these very remote areas and
Speaker 1: what the implications are for well I brought up wildlife,
Speaker 1: but wildlife, solitude whatever, right, just it makes it like
Speaker 1: a buzz with activity. Yeah. Yeah, and that's and that's
Speaker 1: what that border wall system helps to do real lis
Speaker 1: stically for both sides. It's going to help. It does
Speaker 1: help to, you know, increase that solitude aspect and the
Speaker 1: the the I think that the enjoyment of the resource
Speaker 1: UM when when you have you know, a visitor out there,
Speaker 1: because now it's a little bit more safer, they can
Speaker 1: be a little bit more comfortable. Going back to what
Speaker 1: I was talking about with that road restoration and the
Speaker 1: unfortunate incident with with Chris Egley. You know, because of that,
Speaker 1: the Park Service actually closed like sixty of their park
Speaker 1: because of that. Yeah, because of the restoration aary efforts
Speaker 1: that Border Patrol worked with with Park Service, the park reopen. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, so this area that had been closed for
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, fifteen years. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we were able to reopen that the end and now
Speaker 1: not only can the visitors go out there, but Park
Speaker 1: Service their researchers and biologists can go back out there
Speaker 1: and do their research, you know, and do what they
Speaker 1: need to do to help them, you know, catalog you know,
Speaker 1: the cultural and the environmental significance of that area. That's great.
Speaker 1: Did closing those roads those roads limit the illegal traffic
Speaker 1: or do the illegal traffic just change its method? But
Speaker 1: it's you know yes, really yes, yes, yes to both. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, closing it was again just part of the
Speaker 1: whole system because we have the infrastructure on the southern
Speaker 1: border that helped prevent the um you know, the vehicle
Speaker 1: traffic to go over, and then you have agents, you know,
Speaker 1: we it wasn't just like we we we put up
Speaker 1: vertical mulch and you know, walked away. It was a
Speaker 1: joint effort between us. We put up the vertical mulch,
Speaker 1: We went to we had park service come to our musters,
Speaker 1: talk with the agents, tell them about, you know, the
Speaker 1: significance for the area, why we need to use certain roads.
Speaker 1: We kept our agents accountable by making um, you know,
Speaker 1: making them call call in and they call in when
Speaker 1: they go on um these off road um you know,
Speaker 1: unauthorized roads. Essentially we now they're now called temporary tactical
Speaker 1: infrastructure and they call in when they're going off off
Speaker 1: that road, so we can keep account of, Okay, are
Speaker 1: they you know, are they using them? How often? And
Speaker 1: if we need to adjust um those and we we
Speaker 1: still go through every few years, we go through what
Speaker 1: what is currently there, and we'll close off roads that
Speaker 1: you don't need to be closed off if we if
Speaker 1: we need to to you know, create you know, or
Speaker 1: utilize a new path that's been that that's been utilized.
Speaker 1: We work with the land managers to see how we
Speaker 1: can affect that, you know, so you know, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a one for one, but sometimes it works,
Speaker 1: you know, more in part part service favor sometimes it
Speaker 1: works more VP favor if you will, but there's still
Speaker 1: that dialogue that we share with with the land manager. Ye.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the prong horn rescue okay
Speaker 1: um because I didn't know that the Border Patrol did
Speaker 1: this until I actually got into this program. But it
Speaker 1: is one of the funniest times that I have and
Speaker 1: thankfully I get to have it there almost every year. UM.
Speaker 1: So the Border Patrol works with Fish and Wildlife Service
Speaker 1: the Sonoran pronghorn um out there in southern Arizona on
Speaker 1: the Cabeza Pritta National Wildlife Refuge. So UM we meet
Speaker 1: throughout the year, but their big thing is that um
Speaker 1: uh there's it's called the prong horn round up UM
Speaker 1: in December. UM, before December some sometime we set up
Speaker 1: I think it's around September October we'll set up boma's
Speaker 1: and they'll capture some of the pronghorn that are on
Speaker 1: Cabeza Prietta UM and then in December UM Fish and
Speaker 1: wild Lifestyle, what does the boma trap? A boma is like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost like like a trap. There like three
Speaker 1: semicircle um enclosures like a yeah, like a corral. So
Speaker 1: they'll they'll they'll get as many prong horn as they
Speaker 1: can into this area and then in December we get
Speaker 1: together we being Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management,
Speaker 1: Park Service, UM, Arizona Game and Fish UM. They have
Speaker 1: UM contracts with various veterinarians to come out and will
Speaker 1: go in and there's various steps to the process, but
Speaker 1: we we take out the prong horn one by one,
Speaker 1: we carry them out, they get UM vet checks, UM
Speaker 1: you know, new radio callers if they need callers UM,
Speaker 1: and then will will redistribute the herd depending on where
Speaker 1: they where they need to go. Because again going back
Speaker 1: to that Secure Fence Act funding in early two thousand's UM,
Speaker 1: the snow and pronghorn was another research UM UH research
Speaker 1: funding string that we utilize. They're about fifty prong horn
Speaker 1: um on Cabeza preod at the time UM currently currently,
Speaker 1: I want to stay somewhere around like four in fifty.
Speaker 1: A few years back, it was like a little over
Speaker 1: five dred but there's been droughts, there's been some other issues.
Speaker 1: Is it a hunted population It is not. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's an endangered species UM and so they've been working
Speaker 1: to re establish in on the Cabezi Prietta. So it's
Speaker 1: like a restoration. It's a restoration, yeah yeah, and um yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it is. It is crazy sometimes of the things
Speaker 1: that that happened, just even just trying to get um
Speaker 1: these prong horn out because you've got to go in.
Speaker 1: There's i'd say maybe anywhere from seven to twelve of
Speaker 1: us on essentially a tennis net, and you gotta they'll
Speaker 1: put they try to they try to to take you know,
Speaker 1: there's eighty in the first boma and then they will
Speaker 1: let down, so they will let down into the second
Speaker 1: and then the final. In the final boma there they
Speaker 1: try to have like two to three prong horn, so
Speaker 1: you have two or three pronghorn running around. You get
Speaker 1: this net and you have to go in and you're
Speaker 1: trying to to net them, but they're very fragile. They're
Speaker 1: also super quick and they jumped super high, so a
Speaker 1: three ft net sometimes not even close to enough. Um. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: one time this we were going in and the person
Speaker 1: that was the lead, the lead netter, he had a
Speaker 1: catcher's mask on and it was one of my first
Speaker 1: years doing this, and I was like, why is that
Speaker 1: guy wearing a catcher's mask, like I got I'm holding
Speaker 1: this net and I got you know, I got gloves
Speaker 1: on and a hat, and I'm thinking, why is this
Speaker 1: guy wearing a catcher's mask? Where's Yeah? I'm like, what
Speaker 1: what did I sign up to do here? Right? So
Speaker 1: then I just I hear that the gate open, and
Speaker 1: then you've got to be really quiet because you don't
Speaker 1: want to scare him. And I just hear go co
Speaker 1: co co co. And so we're starting to we're starting
Speaker 1: to run run to the door, and the guy slams
Speaker 1: the door shut, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what happened?
Speaker 1: Like now we're we all kind of sandwich at the door.
Speaker 1: And then they're like, hey, come here, come here. They're
Speaker 1: calling another vet, you know, a medic, and they go
Speaker 1: in there and then here some rustling. A minute later,
Speaker 1: the guy with the catcher's mask comes out. The mask
Speaker 1: is like on the side of his face, his nose
Speaker 1: is bleeding, his shirts all caught up, and I'm just
Speaker 1: standing like I'm supposed to be next, Like what is
Speaker 1: like I looked at what a prong horn was Is
Speaker 1: there really a prong horn in this thing? Or like
Speaker 1: is this some kind of weird, like you know, interagency
Speaker 1: joke and oh my gosh, but it turns out it
Speaker 1: was just prong horn. But they are so fast and
Speaker 1: so feisty. Um. But it's a you know, it's a
Speaker 1: great time. And I never thought when I got into
Speaker 1: the Border Patrol, I never thought that this would be
Speaker 1: an opportunity that I would have like pronghorn Yeah well
Speaker 1: not even yeah, pronghorn wrestling when you when you boil
Speaker 1: it down, but the fact that like I get to
Speaker 1: come to work and one of my jobs is to
Speaker 1: interact with an endangered species and be part of be
Speaker 1: part of a project that hopefully rehabilitates, you know, and
Speaker 1: re establishes an endangered species you know, on on Earth,
Speaker 1: you know, and in the country, like for some kid
Speaker 1: from Oak Carbor who went to you know, Washington State
Speaker 1: University and ends up, you know, helping to re establish
Speaker 1: an endangered species. Like that's I never thought that that
Speaker 1: my life would lead to something like that, ye unexpected
Speaker 1: turns man. Oh yeah, yeah. And that's the great thing
Speaker 1: I think that with the Border Patrol, um, is that
Speaker 1: I think people don't often see just how diverse the
Speaker 1: job can be, you know. Um, they think, oh, you're
Speaker 1: just going to be out along the border, you know. Well,
Speaker 1: yeah you may, you know, for a little bit. But
Speaker 1: then look, you could be working with these you know,
Speaker 1: these aerostats. You could be you know, playing bagpipes. You
Speaker 1: could be you know, you could be you could be
Speaker 1: working with pronghorn. There's so much when I could see
Speaker 1: where people would have I don't have it, but I
Speaker 1: could see where people would have a limited view of
Speaker 1: the job. But I guess I've just spent enough time
Speaker 1: down in border country where I recognized the complexity of
Speaker 1: the role and all the different you know, I guess
Speaker 1: if you're down there and you're observant, you just see,
Speaker 1: um how wide reaching and complex it is. But I
Speaker 1: think that you could come from a certain very narrow
Speaker 1: view and and just get an idea of what people
Speaker 1: are up to. That's a little bit reductive mm of
Speaker 1: what's going on. I haven't personally felt that way though,
Speaker 1: you know, I look at them like that. That's like
Speaker 1: a lot, there's a lot happening with a lot of ramifications. Man,
Speaker 1: I'll say this, if you're looking to get into a
Speaker 1: federal job and make a difference the the the United
Speaker 1: States border controls, one place where you can do that
Speaker 1: just because of the the great deal of things that
Speaker 1: we do. You can go and you can patrol on boat,
Speaker 1: you control on a TV, you can patrol on horseback,
Speaker 1: you control my vehicle, UM, and we have all these
Speaker 1: other programs that you grow that you can go into
Speaker 1: and do that you can actually make a difference if
Speaker 1: something is important to you. So if if the environment
Speaker 1: is important to you, we have an we have an
Speaker 1: avenue for that in the Border Patrol. If if wildlife
Speaker 1: is important to you, we have an avenue for that
Speaker 1: in the Border Patrol. And fighting narcotics is important to you,
Speaker 1: we have an avenue for that in the Border Patrol.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing the Border Patrol gives it. Most
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies don't have is they're sort of they're
Speaker 1: sort of focused on on one thing where we're trying
Speaker 1: to focus on, but we have to focus on so
Speaker 1: many other things just just just because of the virtue
Speaker 1: of the way we do our jobs. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one area you guys aren't focused. UM have Lena Intel
Speaker 1: for me and we listen. We might be down in
Speaker 1: that spot in mid February. I expect it to be
Speaker 1: a little different when I run into this year. Now
Speaker 1: that you made that public, and keep an eye in
Speaker 1: your inbox. Probably I want those guys be ready to
Speaker 1: air drop way points because like, don't play dumb with me.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure one more thing we covered
Speaker 1: before we go. Since we've given you some tools. Going
Speaker 1: back to your your fish gate thing, here, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: depute eyes you as a junior board. Here's your This
Speaker 1: gives you no authority whatsoever. Wear it with pride, and
Speaker 1: I hope you find a solution to the fish gate.
Speaker 1: Oh when I'm doing my fish don't, I want you
Speaker 1: to be able to display say that for when you
Speaker 1: get your polygraph, when you hook them up to the
Speaker 1: machine and you start watching them, they will give you
Speaker 1: that get Their eyes are gonna be twitching just seeing that. Well,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys coming down, man um. I've always
Speaker 1: been real fascinated by it. Again, just like time spent,
Speaker 1: and like Southern Texas, a lot of time we're spending,
Speaker 1: uh the Sonora Arizona. You know, just be like, what
Speaker 1: are those guys up to? Well, we appreciate the opportunity
Speaker 1: to come on. It's a great opportunity for us to
Speaker 1: come and show the work that we're doing in the board,
Speaker 1: which to give give your listeners and everybody else out
Speaker 1: there and the idea of the things that we do,
Speaker 1: and give than them a better idea of the things
Speaker 1: that we do. So we appreciate the opportunity to come on.
Speaker 1: It's great, man, it's been educational. Stay safe, guys. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thanks for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it, man, it's excellent. Thanks a lot