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EAGLE PASS, Texas The rancher's voice rises in
frustration.

Smugglers use his land freely as a passage from Mexico.
They've killed his cattle, ransacked his home, shot at his
neighbors. No, the rancher says angrily. There have been
no victories in this particular battlefield in the war on
drugs.

Seven months after the state of Texas launched the first
phase of a massive force with the U.S. Border Patrol in an
effort to push back drug smugglers and undocumented
immigrants, the borderlands of Maverick County have
returned to equilibrium, where smugglers have virtual run
of the land. And residents feel encircled and embattled.

"If anything, the situation is worse than before," said
the rancher, who would speak only on condition of anonymity
out of fear of retaliation by the smugglers. "There's more
people and more dope coming across the river than before
the DPS Department of Public Safety came. All they did was
give the smugglers a vacation."

Authorities acknowledge that illegal border crossers
have become bolder and more violent in recent years.
Maverick County law enforcement officers have had
increasing reports of dogs and cattle being killed, homes
broken into and assaults on border residents.

Border drug agents say that smugglers frequently use
undocumented immigrants to carry drugs across the river.
Joint effort

In the face of evidence of heightened drug smuggling and
undocumented immigration through this stony stretch where
Mexico and Texas meet, state and federal law enforcement
officers formed a joint task force in August to help stem
the flow.

Both the U.S. Border Patrol and the Texas Department of
Public Safety praised the twomonth first phase of the
operation as a successful, if limited, show of force to the
smuggling organizations responsible for running dope and
undocumented immigrants into Texas.

Some county officials saw it more as a form of political
grandstanding. For the rancher, one of nearly two dozen
families who have worked cattle along the Rio Grande for
generations, the task force was an abysmal failure.

"My neighbor's had shots fired at his house while he was
eating lunch," he said. "You don't dare leave the house
without a gun and every time you leave, you wonder what
might happen to your wife. It's like being a hostage in
your own home." The border task force, one of the last acts
of DPS Director James R. Wilson before his retirement last
year, was a direct response to comments made last summer by
the White House drug czar, Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, to
Maverick County ranchers. He told them it would be two
years before enough new Border Patrol agents could be
assigned to better secure the border.

Governor's approval

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, critical of what he
considered inadequate containment efforts by the Clinton
administration along the border, quickly approved the task
force.

At its height, the effort included about 100 DPS
troopers, brought to Maverick County from throughout Texas,
who patrolled highways and backroads leading north from the
river. An additional dozen or so criminal investigators
and DPS narcotics agents were involved.

The Border Patrol gladly accepted the help. With 55,000
square miles and 205 miles of border in the Del Rio sector,
which includes Eagle Pass, the 395member force is
stretched thin, said John Montoya, deputy chief of the Del
Rio sector. "This was a show of force for us, a notice to
the smugglers that they wouldn't go unchallenged," he said.
"During the time of the task force operation, the number
of aliensmuggling cases decreased and our drug seizures
decreased. That's a success, even if all it really
accomplished was to moving the problem, not stopping it."

Undocumented immigrant apprehensions and drug seizures
dropped after the twomonth task force operation began
Sept. 30, 1996, according to data from the Border Patrol's
Del Rio sector office.

Apprehensions of undocumented immigrants fell from
12,637 in August 1996 to 8,820 in September, then continued
to decline. By December 1996, there were 3,212
apprehensions. But those figures mirror the level of
apprehensions in 1995 suggesting that undocumented
immigration slackens in the winter months.

Drug seizure activity improved during the period. More
than 67,000 pounds of marijuana were taken in the Del Rio
sector in 1996. Seizures began dropping, however, after
the increased DPS presence from 6,629 pounds in August,
and continued to fall each month through December, when
3,197 pounds were confiscated. That compared to 1995, when
increasing amounts were detected throughout the year.

Smuggling increase

By border standards, Del Rio is a relatively quiet
sector. Its 33 tons of marijuana seized in 1996 is small
when compared with the 80 tons seized downriver in the
McAllen sector last year.

But the Del Rio activity represents a 650 percent
increase from five years ago, indicating that smugglers are
probing the desolate territory between major ports for new
crossing points, Border Patrol officials say.

"We believe the smugglers had pushed into this sector
because of pressure at other points along the border,"
Deputy Chief Montoya said. "We pushed back." In the wake
of the task force, Border Patrol in the Del Rio sector
filed more than 259 alien smuggling cases. During the drug
sweep, DPS troopers alone made 30 drug arrests, mostly
couriers carrying narcotics in their vehicles.

DPS officials say their efforts haven't ended, only
changed. "The program has gone into another phase," said
Maj. Burton Christian, of DPS traffic law enforcement in
Austin. "We are now operating as a mobile task force,
maintaining pressure along the border at various places at
varying times. They don't know where we're going to be."

Maj. Christian declined to disclose how many DPS
personnel are now deployed, although the number is
significantly below the number during phase one.

At that time, DPS troopers put in a total of 96,876 work
hours in Maverick County, running traffic stops along
highways and county roads, Maj. Christian said.

The operation cost the state of Texas more than $ 1
million, including $ 789,397 in trooper overtime pay and $
367,789 in meals, hotel and travel expenses.

Violence potential

By comparison, DPS spent a total of $ 537,367 for
emergency services during flooding in Houston last fall.
The impact of the illegal crossing is a jarring
contradiction to the times dating back to the Texas
Republic. Mexicans and Texans have traditionally lived in
relative peace along this stretch of border. In years
past, a rancher's wife said, it was common to give food and
clothing to the bands of immigrants who crossed the river
illegally.

"When my kids were small, I wasn't afraid to let them
roam and play all over the entire ranch," she said. "Now,
I'd never let my grandkids out of my sight. Everytime my
husband goes out the door, I wonder what might happen to
him."

The potential for violence came to a head in January
1996 when Border Patrol Agent Jefferson Barr was gunned
down by drug smugglers while on routine patrol in Eagle
Pass. It was the firsttime a trafficker had fired at an
agent there.

Since then, there have been at least a halfdozen
exchanges of gunfire around Eagle Pass, authorities said.
Agents routinely patrol in bulletproof vests.

On Feb. 25, Eagle Pass Police Chief Tony Castaneda
testified before a congressional subcommittee that Maverick
County was under siege from Mexican drug traffickers who
are better armed and better equipped than U.S. lawmen.
"What we need from Washington is total commitment. If
you're going to war, you need to dedicate to the cause,"
Chief Castaneda said.

Back in his office, Chief Castaneda said federal
authorities have never seen Maverick County as a narcotics
hot spot.

"They just saw us as a sleepy little border town," he
said.

"Now, there's a big increase in narcotic trafficking,
and the feds haven't moved fast enough to put up a
resistance."

The DEA office in Eagle Pass recently increased manpower
from two agents to three, the chief said. "I have six of
my officers working with DEA to help them learn the ropes,"
Chief Castaneda said. "The traffickers can count too."

The ranchers living near the river have Chief
Castaneda's sympathy.

Helpless

"These are people who have worked hard all their lives
just to feed and educate their kids and put a roof over
their heads," he said. "And now, they are captives on
their own land. It just eats away at the American spirit.
It makes me sick."

From the ranchers' perspective, the chief is preaching
to the choir.

"The task force is nothing but politics," the rancher
said.

"Meanwhile, some folks have had to walk away from land
that's been in the family for generations because they just
couldn't take it anymore. I don't know a single rancher
here who wouldn't leave if they could."

For the rancher, ending his ranch tour at his home, only
a halfmile from the Rio Grande, documenting the assault on
his land has become an obsession.

He keeps a rifle in his vehicle and carries highpowered
binoculars to monitor the movement of people across the
river. He tells of seeing armed sentries keeping watch on
his land.

He's identified four separate trails worn smooth by
smugglers.

He's grown adept at reading muddy footprints to tell how
large a group has moved in what direction. Each day, he
checks the crossing points, noting how many footprints he's
seen, how many fences have been crushed down. Each month,
he figures, nearly 1,000 people cross his land.

He writes it all down in a notebook, evidence, he says,
to convince someone, anyone, that he and the other ranchers
are encircled and held hostage on their land.

"This used to be a happy place, a wonderful place to
work and raise a family," he said. "Now, it's just no fun
anymore. And who's going to come to our aid? How long
before it turns worse and there's bloodshed? I tell you,
this is the most helpless feeling in the world, living
along this river right now."