John Fitzpatrick '86, patrol agent in charge of the U.S. Border Patrol's Nogales Station in Arizona, finds himself at the "center of the storm" of illegal immigration

Story by Marc Glass (Winter 2008 issue)
Photos by Aerr Eltringham, U.S. Border Patrol

As Patrol Agent in Charge of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Nogales Station, John Fitzpatrick ’86 is responsible for only a sliver of the more than 2,000 mile border with Mexico. But Fitzpatrick knows big things come in small packages: his 32-mile stretch in southern Arizona is the busiest U.S. point of interdiction for narcotics, contraband and convicted felons as well as the majority of illegal border crossers—nonviolent people escaping poverty.

The southern Arizona border itself illustrates the daunting task Fitzpatrick and the 570 Border Patrol agents that serve under him face. The barriers are either formidable (such as the 2.5-miles of fenced and heavily guarded border in downtown Nogales) or in need of fortification (such as the single strand of barbed wire that sometimes demarcates the desert). Where the boundary appears less robust, agents on foot, bike, horseback and ATV are alerted to activity by a network of electronic snares, including ground-based radar, seismic sensors, infrared trip wires and surveillance cameras.

For the north-bound who manage to cross in downtown Nogales, evasion is almost certain once they’re Stateside.

“If we don’t apprehend them immediately, it’s only a matter of seconds before they slip into a car, a business or a residence and we lose them in the urban environment,” Fitzpatrick said. “Nogales is the center of the storm for illegal immigration in the United States.”

Consider Nogales by the numbers and you see why Fitzpatrick isn’t given to hyperbole. Last year his agents apprehended more than 90,000 people crossing the 32 miles of east-west border from the Patagonia Mountains to Ruby, west of Nogales. (The next busiest station apprehends approximately 10,000 fewer illegal aliens per year.) With more than 300,000 pounds of marijuana confiscated last year, Nogales is also the highest point of interdiction in the United States.

Fitzpatrick, however, is more concerned about a smaller number.

“Since 9/11 we know there are people in the world who mean to do the United States harm. My greater concern is about one suitcase bomb making it across the border headed for Tucson or another major metropolitan area,” he said. “I need to look in the mirror every day and tell myself I’ve done everything I can to make sure resources are deployed and people are trained in the best way to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Fitzpatrick is as philosophical about the challenges of defending America’s southern border—and the plight of most who seek to cross it illegally—as he is vigilant. He said 90 percent of people who illegally cross in his territory are “economic migrants,” simply seeking a better way of life.

“When I was first stationed with the Border Patrol in Chula Vista, Calif., I had no idea about the magnitude of the immigration problem in America,” said the Houlton native, who relocated to the southwest shortly after graduation to be with his wife, who was attending Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Faced with a soft job market, the would-be high school health teacher joined up on the recommendation of his uncle, a Border Patrol veteran. “I was frustrated and angry with what I saw happening. I thought to myself, ‘How dare these people come to our country and break our laws.’ Everything for me at that time was black and white.”

Then he began to engage those whom he had arrested (in near-fluent Spanish, as is required of all agents), sometimes in the middle of the desert while waiting for detainee transport vehicles to arrive.

“The more time I spent with them, the more I came to understand their desperation. Most of them don’t want to leave their homes, and they’re not coming here to do us harm,” he said. “You have to understand their mentality. If I had to feed my kids and I could do so by crossing a line, I’d probably do it, too. In any meaningful change, we have to look at social and economic problems alongside border enforcement.”

The trouble is, he said, the other 10 percent of illegal crossers are bent on criminal activity, after already having been incarcerated in U.S. prisons for violent felonies and deported upon release. Like the 90 percent who cross seeking a better life, they, too, are motivated by economic interests.

“As we become more effective with new technologies and more manpower, the violence actually increases. Territory along the border is controlled by criminal organizations, which means that narcotics and alien smugglers who are shut down in one area cannot simply move east or west,” he said. “They have to pay rival crime lords in order to operate on that territory. As they get more desperate to stay in business, they’re going to push back, and we see that in smugglers who work in greater numbers with more weaponry.”

As a former member of a special response team (the U.S. Border Patrol’s version of SWAT), Fitzpatrick knows the criminal push back first hand. When agents aren’t subjected to a hail of gunfire or rocks (216 were assaulted in the Tucson Sector last year), they must contend with chasing down illegal aliens over desert rife with rattlesnakes and barbed wire. Thinly veiled resentment abounds, even from business interests just north of the border that eagerly anticipate unrelenting waves of cheap, albeit illegal, labor.

Clearly, there are easier ways to earn a living. What motivates Fitzpatrick to lead the high-risk effort to stem the tide of illegal immigrants?

“Back when I was frustrated with the situation, I started to appreciate the work the Border Patrol agents do that can’t be understood or appreciated my most people,” he said. “Two of my agents were shot in an ambush by drug smugglers. Another agent, a young kid, himself an immigrant from Russia, was fatally shot nine years ago. Now that I’m in a leadership position, I focus on doing whatever I can to get them everything they need so they go home at the end of their shift.”

Arizona Republic headlines reveal the quandary Americans face with immigration reform: “Shortage of Workers Imperils Yuma Crops” (Nov. 21, 2006) and “Federal Funding Sought for Illegal Migrant Costs” (Oct. 24, 2007). Fitzpatrick, who was invited to share his boots-on-the-ground perspective in a 1994 televised interview with former ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel, knows the answers aren’t easy.

“What we need is comprehensive immigration reform. We need the labor, and we need to find a way to control that flow legally, maybe through some kind of tamper-proof biometric identification card, even though that’s controversial,” he said. “We also need better interior enforcement to follow up with people to make sure they don’t outstay their visas. We can build all the fences we want. That alone is not going to stop them from coming.”