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Border Patrol taking on cartels in battle for young minds

By Ray Gomez

Story Created: Oct 20, 2009

Story Updated: Oct 21, 2009

Border Patrol agents in the Laredo sector are now taking a stand on juvenile crime.
They see drug smuggling cases almost everyday and say they are seeing an increase in juveniles being the smugglers.
Operation Detour is a nationwide initiative.
The public service campaign is targeted at the community's youth from the ages of 14 to 18.
All this is in an effort to educate them about the dangers and consequences surrounding narcotics smuggling.
This program provides a real and true sense of the horrors and tragedies juveniles go through when they are involved with narco-terrorism.

So how dangerous is this lifestyle of becoming a smuggler for drug cartels?
According to Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies in Laredo, they have seen an increase in juveniles hired to transport drugs.
Our Noraida Negron tells us about a video Border Patrol is using to educate students in our community.
"They need to be given the reality of the consequences of those decisions that they are going to be faced with."

Rusty Fleming has produced several documentaries on narco terrorism along the south Texas border including Laredo.
Now he's teamed up with Border Patrol creating a documentary bringing awareness to the youth of our community.
"What’s really happening now with drug cartels is they are trying to indoctrinate these kids. They not trying to hire them. They are given a doctrinarian to a way of life."

It’s a lifestyle that Border Patrol says is dangerous and has consequences.
"It’s a harsh reality but it’s something that’s really impacting our students throughout America and especially here along the southwest border," Acting Border Patrol chief Rosendo Hinojosa told Pro 8 News.

The documentary has already been shown to students in Zapata.
The video, which is described as graphic, was shown to students from seventh grade to seniors.
"This is the first time that what they are doing is a little on the graphic side and it's reality and we had the opportunity to show it in Zapata," Zapata ISD Superintendent Romeo Rodriguez said.

Fleming, the creator of the documentary says he has researched juveniles as smugglers for years now, interviewing numerous kids from the ages of 13 to 21 talking about their initiations and how they were taught to operate.
"Some of them have been famous in Laredo in terms of being trained to be assassins. For five years I've been doing this."

Meanwhile Fleming says kids are very aware of who is who in their world, saying they are facing these temptations to join a lifestyle that will lead them to death or jail.
"We can't talk down to our kids. Just say no. This is your brain on drugs."

Border Patrol is now in talks with United ISD and Laredo ISD to bring the documentary to their classrooms.
They want to spread the narco-terrorism awareness among students in the area.