EXCLUSIVE: Inside El Paso's battle to secure the border as Texas Department of ... trends now
High-speed chases between human smugglers and cops in El Paso have turned the Texas border city into the Wild West, where pursuits spill onto golf courses, narrowly miss packed school buses and sometimes end fatally.
DailyMail.com spent several nights on the US-Mexico border with the Texas Department of Public Safety - who are charged with tracking people illegally crossing into the United States, and then alerting border control to make arrests.
So far this year, a record 2.47 million migrants were stopped at the US border - up from nearly 2.4million the year before. Thousands more are flooding across the border illegally.
El Paso - a Democrat stronghold in Texas - has seen a surge of migrants since August last year, with more than 1,000 people crossing per day, according to the local government. Most of the migrants illegally crossing the border are from Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba.
To try to stem the flow, a Texas DPS chopper scours mountain ranges on the border of El Paso for cartel scouts, for people illegally crossing on foot, and cars used by human smugglers.
Once they’re spotted, they often end in high-speed chases on the ground. One chase witnessed by DailyMail.com ended up in El Paso's most exclusive neighborhood, Sierra Crest, which clings to the side of Crazy Cat Mountain. Dramatic footage shows the smuggler and migrants bailing from a car after being cornered in a cul-de-sac full of luxury homes.
The migrants then headed into a backyard where the DPS chopper used heat-sensing technology to find them all hiding underneath brush.
'There are three to four of these pursuits almost every night,' Sgt. Eliot Torres, the DPS spokesman for West Texas, told DailyMail.com.
VIDEO GOES HERE
A Texas Department of Public Safety pursuit of a suspected illegal immigrant smuggler ends when the driver is cornered in a cul-de-sac of upscale El Paso neighborhood, Sierra Crest, which clings to the side of Crazy Cat Mountain. All of the passengers in the car (illegal immigrants) and the driver (a suspected smuggler) bailed from the car when cornered
An SUV suspected of carrying illegal immigrants in El Paso was pulled over by Texas DPS officers, as witnessed by DailyMail.com from a DPS helicopter. Inside the black vehicle, authorities discovered about 10 illegal immigrants. Border Patrol was called to the scene to take the migrants into custody
Texas DPS' chopper unit tracks illegal immigrants using mountain ranges on the border to sneak into El Paso, Texas
Wild videos show other pursuits ending with a smuggler and migrants crashing into a pond on a golf course at a country club.
Golfers were shocked to see a black Jeep carrying five illegal immigrants tear across the fairway followed by a state trooper.
DPS, under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott, is the one of multiple federal, state and local agencies in town, but the only department engaging in pursuits of smugglers on a regular basis.
'The El Paso Police Department and Border Patrol can't do it,' said one DPS helicopter pilot.
The other law enforcement agencies, he explained, have strict pursuit policies that severely limit when El Paso Police Department officers or agents from the US Border Patrol can chase suspected human smugglers.
Both those departments have deemed most police pursuits too risky to the public at large to justify chasing a suspect, and they only allow for officers to pursue a suspect in isolated cases or situations of imminent danger.
Night vision cameras from the Texas DPS chopper spot illegal immigrants emerging from hiding in vegetation and getting into a truck under the cover of darkness
A pursuit of a vehicle carrying illegal immigrants ends on a freeway in El Paso as law enforcement tackle a rise in human smuggling in the state
A group of so-called 'runners,' migrants who run from authorities trying to arrest them, try to evade law enforcement after crossing into El Paso, Texas illegally
After the West Texas city declared a state of emergency over the border crisis in December 2022, the Republican governor ordered dozens of his DPS state troopers to the staunchly Democratic city to help control illegal trafficking.
Slowly, pursuits throughout the city began to increase as DPS officials spotted cars picking up illegal immigrants.
When state troopers attempt to pull over vehicles suspected of carrying illegal immigrants inside of them, smugglers in the driver's seat will often refuse to stop – resulting in a chase.
'We can't send the message that we are going to let them go,' explained Texas DPS Captain German Chavez during a night-time helicopter ride with DailyMail.com.
'Smugglers know that (El Paso) police won't chase them. They know they can just outrun them and get away. If we let them go, we're basically giving up the city to them.'
The department denied a request for the number of chases its troopers have taken part of in El Paso.
A smuggler speeds past a school bus in El Paso, Texas as the driver is being pursued by officers from Texas DPS. A second school bus is less than a block away from the chase is happening
Law enforcement apprehend a suspected human smuggler outside a Walmart in El Paso when the vehicle he was driving was tracked by the DPS helicopter
Four people were killed inside this gray Mazda car that was speeding and being chased by Texas DPS when the driver lost control and crashed into a concrete barrier in El Paso, Texas on October 30
The role of DPS in the pursuits has been controversial, especially after an October 30 chase ended with the deaths of three people.
Troopers tried to stop a speeding gray Mazda with fake license plates, the department confirmed.
The car ended up crashing into a concrete barrier several miles after the pursuit began.
Four people, all illegal immigrants according to local news reports, were killed.
In a separate incident, eight people – including two innocent Americans – were killed Wednesday in a police pursuit where deputies from the Zavala County Sheriff were chasing a suspected illegal immigrant smuggler.
Residents in El Paso are divided on the disputes.
One man, a retired Navy sailor who lives in West El Paso, who asked to remain anonymous told DailyMail.com: 'Texas DPS, thanks to the governor of Texas, has killed a bunch of people and they're causing so many accidents.
'Not a week goes by that smugglers aren't crashing somewhere. Who pays the price? The passengers who are in their cars. They don't care if someone dies. DPS is chasing them at any cost.'
But residents of El Paso's Upper Valley neighborhood, which straddles the Texas-New Mexico border, say they're grateful for the presence of state troopers.
'We're seeing migrants everywhere: in our yards, on our property. We don't know who these people are,' resident James Forrestal said.
'I had a friend who was at the country club, and out of nowhere, migrants were there and then DPS showed up and took them into custody.'
Regardless of how locals feel about the DPS pursuits, most residents acknowledge they're seeing the impact of illegal immigration seeping into their daily lives, something most El Pasoans had not seen before 2022.
Officials from the City of El Paso declined to comment on the chases.
Map of El Paso, Texas and nearby New Mexico shows where illegal human smuggling is taking place
The border wall between the US and Mexico as seen from the air over Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the left of the wall is Mexico and to the right is New Mexico. This area is known as a smuggling hot spot where cartels move people over the border wall and into the US for a fee
