i don't know what part of the border you're talking about.
obviously we're limited by our experiences.
in socal i crossed the border at san ysidro/tijuana for 15 years at least once a month. the u.s. border patrol is very obvious there.
it used to be easy to cross the border. no longer. it used to be in arizona on the i-10 at night occasionally you'd see a border patrol guy in his car, high beam lights pointed at you, as you drove across a wash. his lights lit up your face.
after 9.11 the border patrol has a stop point on the i-10 in the mountains east of alpine which is east of san diego.
there's a border patrol stop point on i-10 about 70 miles east of yuma, az. this one's scary at night. young recently-discharged military guys probe your car and your brain looking for the least amount of anxiety. you are lit up by powerful lights aimed in our face, the electricity generated by engines.
meanwhile a vw-like dune buggy with a wheel spread of about 10 feet is on and ready for the drive to chase down anyone that makes a run for it.
there's another stop on i-10 about 100 miles into texas.
the chp west of yuma at night scares me. this is a war zone. they'll come out of no where at 90 mph, focus a light on your license, type it into ncic, and pull around you and take off.
even befoe 9.11 it was very difficult for illegals to hike around the border checkpoints. there are 2 in north san diego county:
1. i-15 at rainbow in the mountains. the mountains are very difficult to hike in. between march and october (or whenever the nighttime temps = 50 degrees) you have to deal with rattlesnakes. they get very large because there are few roads to allow cars to run over them. consequently, many illegals get bitten by rattlesnakes along the california border. rattlesnakes are nocturnal and hunt. the rainbow border patrol point is in a high mountain pass; the mountains have huge round boulders.
2. the other border check point is near the san onofre nuclear reactor. no one is going thru' that! period. 1-5 is next to the beach of the pacific ocean and surrounded by steep mountains and camp pendleton, a u.s. marine base. no one is going to get around that check point. when i lived in san diego a neighbor of mine was a young marine who worked police security on the base at night. he reported always catching illegals. the u.s. marines have the latest night vision equipment. again, the mountains are steep, rocky, and habited by lots of rattlesnakes. i don't think rattlesnakes within a mile or so of the pacific ocean hibernate, altho' they do in the mountains. i've seen rattlers next to the ocean in january. inland at 300-400 ft elevation levels, such as vista and san marcos i frequently have seen rattlesnakes while hiking february thru' november.
east of san diego is mountainous. in the winters some illegals die in snow storms. when it rains in san diego, it snows in the cleveland national forest.
there was once a lot of mexicans crossing these mountains, but i believe the ins has cracked down--that's why the action is in arizona. oh boy. nogales. the indian reservation. the ranches. and the mountainous areas around douglas. and the mountainous area near deming new mexico, along the i-10. these are the hot spots.
"i don't know what part of the border you're talking about."
It was Cozumel.
the Tijuana newspaper Frontera reported in December that 22 new smuggling routes had been established in Tijuana, and that there are now a total of 72 routes in Tijuana. There's plenty of crossing happening in the Tijuana - Tecate area.