ATV Tour of the Mexico - New Mexico Border.

I attended the New Mexico Association of Counties Conference being held at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces. The conference was great giving me the opportunity to meet with county officials and employees from all 33 counties across New Mexico. I started the conference on Tuesday morning June 17, 2008 with an ATV trip across rugged desert country with about 20 sheriff's from throughout the state. We toured an area where law enforcement and border patrol often encounter drug smugglers, and human smugglers as well as illegal border crossings from Mexico. Even though this route is longer and more rugged than some of the closer border crossings this route also avoids many of the checkpoints and more closely watched border areas. Planes often fly into this area late at night and drop drugs to be picked up by waiting criminals on the U.S. side. Many loads of drugs are also found on the backs of people trekking miles through the 109 degree or higher heat. Many bodies are found each year, those who have succumbed to the heat and desert.

Here we are at the starting point for the tour.

As we left the rendezvous point the heat was tremendous and we passed around the sun block and prepared for the tour in which we would trek a little more than an hour into the desert. Local Sheriff's Todd Garrison from Dona Ana County and Sheriff Raymond Cobos of Luna County tell us through out the tour of the problems they encounter with illegal activity from the border. We pass cattle and torn up tires and rims from those passing through this rugged terrain, sometimes with actual passenger cars which are literally driven through the rough terrain until they are in pieces on the desert ground. We pass crosses left by family or friends of those who's last hours on this earth were spent in this desert.

At a break I admired the Guadalupe County ATV.

I grew up in Santa Fe where public opinion is much different in regards to illegal immigration. We don't experience the problems that the border counties encounter and it was very enlightening to see first hand the rough terrain and difficulty law enforcement has patrolling and policing this area. As we debate fences and walls across the border you can see first hand how difficult it really is to secure the border.

Thats me standing up in the back of the ATV with Santa Fe County Under Sheriff Robert Garcia at the wheel.

The area we primarily toured was all in Dona Ana County. The county comprises 3,804 square miles in south-central New Mexico, and borders El Paso County, Texas, to the east and southeast. The county also shares its borders with the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, directly south, Luna County to the west, Sierra County to the north and Otero County to the east. Much of the drugs that come through this area are spread through out the nation including heroin which ends up in northern Santa Fe County and Rio Arriba County. As many of you know this area has the highest rate of overdose deaths in America per capita. We constantly battle the influx of heroin, meth, marijuana, and other illegal drugs coming across the border and into Santa Fe County, much of it across the very ground we toured on this trip.

All the photos and video were taken with my cell phone so the quality is not great. Below is a short video of an area we went through which was being leased from the federal government and used to graze cattle.


I learned a lot on this trip and I thank the Sheriff's who arranged for this trip and gave us the information, and provided the ATV's. I know all the Sheriff's who attended learned a lot and stand ready and willing to provide what ever help we can to those on the front lines along the border.