People smugglers have set up "safe houses" all across the Southwest. Crowded? Yes, but extended immigrant families can be almost as bad.

 

All these people came out of that one van. Dangerously overloaded vehicles are common in alien smuggling.

 

The Tohono O'odham (i.e. Papago) reservation is right on the front line of illegal immigration, since it straddles the Mexican border.

 

 

Miles of pristine desert in 1988. Today 6 tons of trash is dumped on reservation land every day, by the average of 1500 illegals who cross daily.

Photos by John W. Slagle