The very factors that Commissioner Doris Meissner cites in the INS' success story also signal the emergence of more formidable and resilient adversaries along the U.S.-Mexico border. The INS' tighter control of the border has put a premium on resources that criminal organizations possess. Border Patrol agents, for example, report the appearance of 18-wheelers carrying 100 or more immigrants, along with the usual rental trucks ferrying 25 to 30.
Agents say the drivers are no longer moonlighting amateurs, but professional smugglers.
Although rings like the Peraltas' smuggle only immigrants, not drugs, into the United States, they pose nonetheless a serious threat to U.S. law enforcement. For example, the Peraltas succeeded in placing a U.S. Customs agent on their payroll. He waved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of smuggled immigrants through his inspection lane at the San Ysidro port of entry. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, smugglers possess the technology to observe, then communicate to their field operatives the shifting deployments of the Border Patrol and its monitoring equipment. This capability has set off a technological arms race.