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    Could the Big Bend in Texas be the border's weakest link? Smuggling of drugs and migrants is on the rise

    by Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times Dec 27, 2017 5 minutes

    PORVENIR, Texas - Two Border Patrol agents bent to study the sandy dirt like animal trackers - what they call "cutting for sign."

    They didn't have to look far.

    Just yards from the Rio Grande, Agent Lee Smith pointed to footprints and scraps of carpet. Smugglers tie carpet to their shoes in hopes of covering their tracks, he said. Smith followed the rough trail through thick brush, his fellow agent close behind, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a long gun.

    They saw no one. But the agents sensed smugglers watching, waiting.

    "They come right across. What's here to stop them?" Smith said.

    Sometimes smuggler scouts cross on horseback: The muddy banks are pocked with human and horse tracks. The river here, about 60 miles east of El Paso, is just a few yards wide, one of the reasons Border Patrol agents in Texas' Big

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