Life on the Line: Patrolling a land of secret signals and signs on the Texas-Mexico border
ROMA, Texas - The report came over the radio from a Border Patrol agent perched on the riverbank: "We've got a raft with five bodies on it. Roma, upriver from the bridge. I cannot see them; I just know they're already on the U.S. side."
Supervisory Agent Albert Olivares drove toward the action.
"Sounds like the group hit a bug," he said, slang for tripping a sensor planted in the thick mesquite brush.
Within minutes, half a dozen agents descended on nearby Water Street, about a block north of the Rio Grande. One brought a tracking dog, a German shepherd named Arys.
Such scenes unfold routinely in Roma, a town of 11,400 people on the Mexico border. It's a well-traveled entry into Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the country's busiest corridor for illegal immigration.
If immigrants can cross the river here
