In the winter of 2006 I was sent to El Paso and Brownsville to cover the increased militarization
of the Texas/Mexico border. With the addition of fences and National Guard troops, the efforts
to stem the flood of people crossing the Rio Grande outside of these and other cities had grown
to a virtual war. On a ground level, the work was primarily a game of cat and mouse, with border
patrol agents watching through high powered scopes, night vision goggles, and surveillance
cameras in order to send other agents to literally chase people through the reeds, backstreets
and sagebrush hills of the border.