Immigration Reality: Why I Smuggled Myself Across the U.S.-Mexico Border

This is a lead-in for a report on Current TV scheduled for Nov. 15.

Christof Putzel: Why I Smuggled Myself Across the U.S.-Mexico Border: "Nearly all of us are descended from immigrants, of course. But in recent years, as living standards have stagnated or declined for all but the wealthiest and most fortunate Americans, the political pressure to choke off illegal migration has exploded. Billions of dollars are spent on higher, stronger fences, sophisticated sensing technology and more border patrol agents.

Tighter security has pushed would-be migrants to try more and more remote and treacherous areas along the nearly 2,000-mile US/Mexico border. Fewer get through. More die on the way. Yet hundreds of thousands try it every year. This year, officials say, more people have died in the desert on American soil than ever before.

To understand what crossers go through for a shot at the American dream, I went to the small Mexican town of Altar, a hotbed of human smuggling, where migrants pay coyotes—smugglers—to take them across. On assignment for Current TV’s documentary series, Vanguard, I found a coyote willing to allow me to accompany him across the border and into southern Arizona desert." Nov. 15, 2010