[Suspenseful music]
[Austin] I'm a little nervous...
thinkin' about my parents' story.
It'll be the first time I would... I'd been on that section of Rio Grande
where my parents crossed...
in my life.
First time ever.
And I think it's gonna connect
everything really, really well for me.
[Austin] I've been uh, river-guiding here on the Rio Grande
for the past six-ish years.
I want people to know what's out here.
I want the love to be shared.
This is wilderness as wild as it gets.
But people don't like hearing that.
People like hearing about a wall.
Rather than talking about putting up a fence,
why don't we work out some recognition
of our mutual problems...
Make it possible for them to come here legally
with a work permit, and open the border both ways.
We are nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of law.
[Bill Clinton] That's why our administration has moved aggressively
to secure our borders more.
Ours' is a nation of immigrants, we're also a nation of law.
[George W. Bush] We have a responsibility to secure our borders.
President Bush, he signed a bill today
authorizing the construction of a fence
along the border with Mexico.
This fence would be 700 miles long.
[Upbeat music]
[Barack Obama] I think the American people, they appreciate
and believe in immigration. But they can't have a situation where you just have
half a million people pouring over the border
without any kind of mechanism to control it.
Complete the danged fence.
It'll work this time.
[Hilary Clinton] Look, I voted uh, numerous times when I was a senator
to spend money to build a barrier
to try to prevent um, illegal immigrants
from coming in.
[Donald Trump] On day one, we will begin working
on an impenetrable, physical, tall,
powerful, beautiful
southern-border wall.
[Applause and cheering]
[Upbeat music]
[Crowd chanting] Build that wall!
[Donald trump] Build that wall!
Build that wall!
[Ben] This whole idea got started a few months ago.
I was workin' for some wildlife biologists
out in West Texas.
And they were describing to me how a physical wall
would have some really serious impact
to a lot of wildlife species along the Rio Grande.
And it was something that... That I never really thought about,
the actual physical entity of a wall.
And I guess I just wanted to... to learn more about it.
[Jay] Um, uh...
[laughing]
[Ben] On a journey like this, you're only as good
as the team that you have.
And this group is amazing.
[Austin] Like that and mess this up.
[Ben] So you... with horses, you don't have to replace pedals.
Austin Alvarado is a river guide.
He knows the river in West Texas
like the back of his hand.
Heather is an ornithologist.
She studies birds and butterflies along the Rio,
and her knowledge of just the biodiversity at large
is gonna be really important for the trip.
Uh, one second. Yeah.
[Ben] Filipe DeAndrade, an incredible film maker.
I expected like... Yeah, like the mariachi band and great entourage.
Wooh, what a start! And it is just like, "Alright, pull up next
- to the drum trucks, we're doing this thing." - Is he alright?
[Ben] Jay Kleberg, he works for Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.
Conservation is his thing.
[Ben] The wall is gonna be built through a lot of places
that are very near and dear to his heart.
[Chrissy] She may be walking by the time you get back.
- [Jay] Oh, that's not a cool thing. - [Chrissy] Yeah.
[Laughing]
[Jay] You sure I can't just strap her?
I can put her in the Camelback.
- No! - No, I put a little helmet on her with a...
[Chrissy] A little basket in the front of your bike.
- Yeah, with goggles. - [Daughter] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Chrissy chuckling]
[Ben] Like this thing originated in Colorado
and by the time it hits here, it's tiny, minuscule,
and then the United States takes pretty much all of it.
So we can't even float down the uh, the river right now,
that's why we're taking bikes which I'm not that big a fan of,
but you know, looking forward to the horror stretch.
- [Photographer] Alright, get in there, nice and tight. - [Austin] Delighted.
- [Photographer] Alright, I think that probably got it. - Alright.
- Nailed it. - Yeah.
What's the last time you rode a bike, Filipe?
- [Filipe] Me? - Yeah.
- This morning. - This morning.
I just hopped off. Now I'm hoppin' back on again.
Alright, let's go make some bad decisions.
- [Ben] Hell, yeah! - [Filipe] Let's go with it.
Arrr!
[Background music]
[Ben] We are embarking on a 1,200-mile journey
from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico.
[Ben] Riding bicycles where there isn't enough water.
[Ben] Takin' my mustangs through the Big Bend.
And canoeing down the Rio Grande.
[Ben] Tryin' to understand where exactly a wall would go
and what effects it would have.
♪ I dream I'm in ♪
Wait, wait, wait, time out. Serious question.
There is goin' to be doors in this potential wall.
Are there gonna be doors like this to access the Rio Grande?
Like you'll have to get a key or something to acc... No.
No, and where there are access points like this, we'll have agents.
And they'll have access to the gates.
So you might not be able to get access to the
Rio Grande area without Border Patrol.
Okay.
So after this, you're still technically in the United States.
Okay, okay.
[Austin] Wow!
[Filipe] Wait, so we are about to enter Mexico right now?
[Ben] No, we're just gonna ride on the Mexico side of the wall,
but on the US.
[Heather] No-man zone.
[Heather] It's wild being along the wall
to have this massive 25-foot barrier.
It just feels so separate.
[Jay] While I was working in El Paso, they constructed the wall,
and they did it in like 12 months.
From my perspective, it wasn't a real
like uh, cry against the construction
of that fence at the time.
But then since then I... there have been people elected
like congressman O'Rourke
who was against the construction of a... a fence.
[Beto] I... I don't think a lot of people
in the interior of the US understand
that the wall will not literally be built
at the border, at the international boundary line.
It'll be built well within here, it's 100 yards.
Other places it's... it's a mile, 2 miles uh, into the interior
and everywhere it's gonna look as ugly as this or uglier.
[Beto] El Paso for the last 20 years has been either the safest,
the second-safest or the third-safest city in America,
which is really remarkable, because it is at complete odds with the rhetoric
about the border.
[Beto] Of the 2,000 miles of the US-Mexico border,
I believe a little over 600 miles
have fences, walls, physical barriers.
[Background music]
[Beto] And that began after the 2006 Secure Fencing Act,
which Republicans and Democrats,
inducing senators Obama and Clinton at the time,
voted for, which essentially allowed the Bush administration,
and then succeeding administrations,
to put up these physical barriers
and to effectively waive all environmental
and local stakeholders' safeguards.
[Beto] I think people who aren't from the border,
this might make a lot of sense to them like...
So we hear there are problems with Mexico or immigration
or drugs, yeah, a... a big giant fence
with steel and concrete that... that makes a lot of sense.
When you live here, you, you obviously...
You see it differently and you feel it...
You feel it differently.
I think being a politician
and working um,
across the aisle, in most cases for candidates,
is not rewarded at all.
They are rewarded for extreme stances.
I'm Will Hurd. I'm the representative
from the 23rd Congressional District of Texas,
which goes from the fringes of El Paso
all the way to San Antonio.
I have 820 miles of the border.
And I spent nine and a half years
as an undercover officer in the CIA.
I sit on the Homeland Security Committee.
I've chased bad guys all over the world,
I've chased terrorists, I've chased nuclear weapons, proliferators.
I've tr... I've chased the narcotraficantes.
And you learn that your adversary has resources.
They have um, the commitment to do something
and they're... they're... they're... they're smart.
That's why any conversation um, on uh...
On immigration or security has to begin with operational control of our border.
I went to John Marshall High School, but in [indistinct]
- Okay, um... - I'm talking about when... when we were in...
When were in hi... yeah. I took my ring off,
- because obviously I was just supposed to. - No, dude you got to...
- what are you doing? - No, but like I didn't know...
Nobody else is wearing jewelry.
[Will] We can get operational control of our border.
We can enforce our laws to give deterrence
and a consequence to that negative behavior.
[Background chatter]
[Ben] We just got to the end of the wall for the first time.
We need our... our men and women in the Border Patrol
to know exactly what the threat is,
so they're not showing up with no information about what's going on.
And... and so that's why getting the right tools is important.
And... and I think... I think folks need to realize
that you know, um, that we wanna secure the border,
we should have secured our border by now.
- Let's roll. You all... you all start going.
Okay, we're gonna... we're gonna head back.
[Austin] There is wa... there's like...
- There is a canal right there. - We just cross the canal?
- [Filipe] I'll take my shirt off and move across. - [Jay] I mean we could, but uh...
- [Will] Yeah. For sure, - It's supposed to be an adventure, right?
[Heather] We could jump through here, we could just sail right off.
[Will] This shit is deep.
[Heather] You know, I can't get my bike...
Oh yeah! Oh, that's nice.
Ooh! Ooh!
[Will] Y'all didn't tell me it was cold.
- [Laughing] - [Heather] Yee-haw, I know!
[Filipe] Gettin' the congressman
in a bit of pickle here.
Here we go.
- [Filipe] Got it. - You want the camera or you want the hand?
- I'll take your hand. - Yeah.
[Heather] What?
- Yeah. - [Heather] Getting through.
Oh yeah.
Your government salutes you.
- [Laughing] - I'm sure.
I get to my next appointment on time.
[Laughing]
[Song in the background]
[Austin] Wooh-hoo-hoo-hoo!
- [Jay laughing] - Cheers, boys.
Hey, well, to only having five bike malfunctions.
Yeah.
[Ben] Pretty good oatmeal.
Glad I get to eat this.
Is Heather up?
[Heather] Yeah, I'm up.
Okay.
[Austin] Why? Then we need your expertise.
There's all these birds flyin' around.
[Heather] Such a amazing way to start the day.
Just you out there, listening to the birdsong,
takin' everything in.
And it's like such a great time to see
all kinds of wildlife.
[Heather] I grew up in Upstate, New York.
Went to college at Cornell where I studied ecology.
I worked for about five years as a field biologist.
Then I pursued my masters in The Big Bend
and fell in love with the border.
On this trip, I'm going to be doing
as many bird surveys along the route as I can fit in.
My intention is to survey these areas
that nobody has really surveyed birds before
to see what the biodiversity is
before a potential border wall is built.
When you think a high bird diversity
or just high biodiversity, you don't think of a desert.
But it's some of the highest vegetation diversity, and therefore bird diversity,
because you have all these different elevations
and you have the Rio Grande going through
that creates a completely different habitat.
If you're just cruisin' on by, you're gonna think
there's not anything here.
But if you just stop, and like look around,
and listen for a little bit, you realize this place is alive.
[Suspenseful music]
[Ben] The Rio Grande is the fourth longest river
in North America.
It starts in Colorado, flows through New Mexico,
and becomes the US-Mexico border for over 1,200 miles in Texas.
There are so many dams and diversions
that the Rio Grande runs dry below El Paso.
And for nearly 300 miles, there is little to no water.
The Forgotten Reach.
[Playing the harmonica]
- [Heather] Well. - [Austin] Let me help you out with that.
We're fucked.
It's home.
[Filipe] We'd start riding our bikes,
and the ride's goin' pretty well,
and then out of nowhere snow just starts dumpin' on us.
[Wind blowing]
[Ben] I'm doing a... Bring the toes back alive again.
[Jay] Wow, these are some big flakes.
The temperature is dropping.
[Heather] The roads are very quickly degrading.
You can ride for a little while
and then the... the wheels just accumulate mud.
It's still like spring conditions everywhere.
[Austin grunting]
[Austin] I've never been scared away from...
from getting you know, down to business and getting it done.
[Austin grunting]
[Austin] But dang, that was some serious mud.
That was class five mud right there.
[Austin grunting]
At some point, you're not riding the bike,
the bike is riding you.
And uh, you're starting to question the process.
[Filipe sniffles and takes a deep breath]
[Filipe] This thing is freaking heavy.
[Taking deep breaths]
[Filipe] We wake up the next morning, decide just to dump the bikes.
We left our support crew and we continued on by foot.
[Filipe grunting]
[Filipe] Literally, on my knees.
What about in going to the valley
or like goin' even farther up and goin' up and over this?
Is that an option?
[Jay] I think our reference point is [indistinct].
[Jay] We'll just have to go around and come back.
[Filipe] Sorry, keep running.
- [Filipe] Keep going. - That's it, yeah.
For the first time in this trip, I mean we're only a week into the trip,
but today is the first day
that we got a real first hand perspective
of what somebody would have to go through
if they were to cross illegally.
They wouldn't be doing it on horseback,
they wouldn't be doing it on a canoe,
they wouldn't be doing it on bike.
- [Filipe] They'd be walking... - [Ben] For three months.
We came over to the US from Brazil
when I was about six years old.
I was born in the countryside.
I remember traveling in the Amazon
and you know, life being carefree in a way.
And then we were displaced from a flood.
Growing up in Rio de Janeiro,
we were living in the most notorious ghetto in the world
very much at the forefront of drugs, and the cartel and violence.
Anything was better in her eyes.
We flew over here because my mom had a worker visa.
And we came over, me and mom, my sister.
I think it was my mom's intention
to come over here and create a new life
for me and my sister, without my dad,
because he was just a nightmare of a human being.
He was really abusive and... and addicted to drugs,
and you know, not the kind of person
that she wanted to raise her kids.
What I don't think she expected was that
he was going to get rid of all of our legal documents.
She was faced with a very difficult decision.
Go back to Brazil, and then try and come back um,
another way through immigration
or just stay here and figure it out.
[Filipe] Ultimately that meant for about 14 years, we stayed illegally.
There are four avenues or categories through which one can immigrate legally
in to the United States. The first and the most common is one based
on family reunification where preference is given
to the immediate family members.
[Victoria] The second route is through employer-based immigration.
The third is through the refugee or asylee process.
And the last category is through the diversity visa lottery.
If you look at the past 10 or 15 years,
you see a levelling out for about 1 million per year.
There is a cap to that.
Folks don't choose to be undocumented.
When somebody says: "Get in line",
many times there aren't lines.
[Beto] The flow of migration to the US
is really a function of our economy.
The function of economies uh, in the Americas and it's hemisphere,
a function of um, the kind of violence and brutality,
civil wars and death that you find in Central America
that... that you have found off and on in... in Mexico.
There's also a misconception about Mexico.
We are at net zero um, immigration with Mexico,
which means it's not a plus or minus, right.
Uh, most people will think that
you know, most of the illegal immigration is coming from Mexico.
It's not. It's coming from Central America.
Mexico is actually a partner of ours
in trying to stop illegal immigration,
because they are dealing with some of the similar issues
on their southern border.
[Cicadas singing]
- [Austin] Wow! Wow, look at this! - [Filipe] it's right there, man.
- [Austin] Wow! - [Jay] It made me go so fast.
- [Austin] I'm so glad it's pavement. - [Ben] No mud. [kissing]
[Austin] I'm just gonna do this, 'cause my knees can't bend.
[Laughing]
[Soft guitar music]
[Ben] When that trailer pulled in, my heart just like filled with joy.
It symbolized the end of the bicycle,
which is like the greatest
thing that's happened thus far on the trip.
- [Donkey braying] - [All laughing]
- [Indistinct] - Here's your horse.
- Alright, let's do it. - [Ben] Your horse's name is "Donkey Dust".
[Laughing]
I think I'm ready for a new life together.
[Laughing]
Alright, we'll see you.
[Laughing]
[Ben] Now, I've been fortunate to work on ranches
and to do a lot of packed trips all over the American West.
And then this is Dinosaur.
[Ben] My mustangs are so good, they know how to ride.
- He's a beautiful mustang. - Yeah.
[Ben] I knew they would take good care of everybody,
which is very important, because Filipe...
no idea how to ride a horse.
[Filipe] You think she'll let me on?
You have riding boots.
- [Austin] What do you need, huh? - How do you get on?
[Ben] Just hop on!
[Austin] You know you got it.
[Laughing]
Yeah, buddy!
Alright, let's go.
[Austin] Let's go.
- Help me, help me get off. - Okay, come on.
Alright, hold on.
Alright. Now, I'm gonna ride Ben around.
Come on, Ben!
[Heather] I've been on a horse a handful of times
like the touristy situation or like a birthday party or something.
I'm not particularly concerned.
I trust Ben's judgment.
You know, which maybe I shouldn't.
[Filipe] Let's ride!
[Everybody cheering]
[Ben] The part that I was most excited about was the Big Bend.
Big Bend Ranch State Park is 300,000 acres.
Big Bend Ranch National Park is 800,000 acres.
Combined, it's this massive relatively untouched habitat.
[Jay] An ancestor of mine,
who was Parks and Wildlife Commissioner
back in the '30s and '40s, visited this country
when they were looking at designating Big Bend National Park.
And he was a relatively famous rancher.
So that's in his blood like he sees the land
and he sees how am I gonna produce off of that land.
And his comment
that the highest and best use for that land
is for public recreation.
We're sitting on the results of that legacy.
It's important for me to complete that circle,
and try and protect an area that he saw promising.
That's threatened right now by the law.
And so if I can do something to sort of protect that legacy,
then I feel like that's an important part of...
of my life right now.
[Whistling]
[Ben] Pay attention, boys.
[Whistling]
[Ben] Rocks!
Easy, Tough, easy, easy.
[Heather] Alright, go ahead now.
[Ben] Yeah, this is definitely a walker.
- [Ben] Yeah. - [Heather] Carrying a lot, yeah.
30 minutes in adventure mode, engaged.
[Ben] This area is
some of the gnarliest, rockiest, nastiest
terrain I've ever been in.
Every single piece of vegetation out here has thorns
and stickers and cactus.
[Heather] Alright.
[Heather] Good, good.
[Filipe] Dude, these mustangs
are made for the backcountry.
Fortunately, all my mustangs, they were all born in the wild
on public lands in the American West.
[Background music]
[Ben] They grew up in desolate harsh landscapes like this.
They know how to walk through this country,
they know how to meander through the rocks,
and stay away from the cactus, and how to navigate
through cliffs and difficult terrain.
It makes me proud to...
to see my ponies take care of everybody so well
and take care of themselves so well.
They are great... they're great horses.
Yeah, I like [indistinct]
[Ben] Five years ago, some friends and I went out
and adopted these mustangs,
trained them and rode 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada
through public lands in the American West.
That experience completely changed my life
and gave me a huge appreciation not only for these horses,
but for public lands.
Less than 3% of Texas is open to the public.
That's it.
And there is no way that you could put a border wall
even close to the river in a lot of this country.
It'd have to be built inland,
bulldozed, and slicing apart the only big chunk of public land
that we have left in Texas,
essentially blocking us from the Rio Grande.
[Austin] You can feel the crisp air right by the Rio.
[Heather] Look at all that water.
It's the first time we've been in the river.
[Background music]
This is kind of emotional right now.
I'm giddy.
[Austin] Oh yeah.
[Austin] He couldn't resist.
[Jay] There he is.
[Cheering]
It's amazing, it's beautiful, and it's
the lifeblood of this entire area.
And uh...
You don't really think about the politics behind it.
- Watch out! - [Filipe] If they could see this...
I'm sorry I can't pay attention with this going on.
- [Austin] Are you coming? - [Shouting]
- I'm not... I'm not wearing a underwear! - [Austin] Come on!
- Perfect. - Alright, my bike shorts need washing.
[Ben] Oh, this is a terrible idea.
[Jay] Yeah, you better jump in.
[Heather] Get your ass in here!
[Ben] I'm comin'!
[Cheering and laughing]
[Calm music]
Big Bend is... it's one of those vast landscapes
that is unlike any other.
There's just a huge amount of diversity
from large mammals all the way down to the smallest.
[Dr. Louis] And we rely on Mexico for some of these populations.
Black bear is probably the best example of that.
You know, we basically extirpated black bears
from the Big Bend region of Texas uh, in the 1950s,
uh, hunting, trapping, things like that.
Until about 1990, we had a... a lone female come across
and uh, she had cubs, that population started to grow.
And now we have 40, 50, maybe even 100 bears in Texas today
and that is solely dependent on Mexico.
Our large mammals, they cross that river
sometimes on a daily basis.
If those porters are cut off
you know, if there... there is a wall there,
it's gonna cut off that water source.
We would start seeing issues genetically.
They need to be able to move freely
to be able to survive.
- [Ben whistling] - [Heather] Donkey found some shade.
[Filipe] Oh, she did. Look at her over there.
[Heather] Oh, she's got a little patch.
I would think that after a few hours
- you would start to like get the motion down. - Yes. Yeah.
But it still hasn't happened.
[Filipe] I mean I'm not ruling kids out, but you know...
[Ben laughing]
[Jay] I think it's been a total shock to Heather
and Filipe and Austin's body,
because those are parts of your body and muscles
that you don't normally use.
[Heather] Describe the pain.
Describe the pain.
Imagine Bob the Builder jackhammering away
at your business region for like 20 miles.
[Upbeat country music]
I couldn't quite get the posture
and the trot formation down.
So instead of like posting and you know, just kind of like
doing that dance with the horse,
I was just bein'...
But with that being said, it was... it was emotional.
[Yelling]
You don't connect with a bicycle
or a unicycle or a canoe the same way you do with a horse.
The only thing cooler than being on top of the world
is being on top of the world on a horse.
[Background chatter]
[Jay] Visually you think that you can take off, ride somewhere,
and then all of a sudden there is a 100-footed rail.
There's just no trails in some of this country.
I don't know.
I don't know about this.
[Indistinct]
[Heather] Yeah, I don't... I don't know
if we're gonna just be bold and keep goin'.
[Jay] It's like some of the most rugged country that...
that I've ever been through in Texas,
because you just have these boxed canyons and this...
these sheer rock faces on... on either side of you.
Yeah, hold off on that route.
[Austin] Look to the right.
We're boxed in.
It's a boxed canyon.
I was thinking w... yeah.
Could we not get semi-high ground?
The smartest thing to do is turn around
and go back the way we came.
I feel about 95% confident that the game trail
that does go up, would be perfectly fine for our horses,
but that 5% risk is something that I'm not willing to risk
with these guys.
So let's just head on out,
then that way everybody will be safe.
This area is as difficult as any landscape
that I've been to in the West.
I don't see how you could build a physical border wall
that's more difficult to cross through than this landscape.
[Will] One of the things that I've been frustrated with
when it comes to border security is
we try to have a one-size-fits-all solution.
Uh, you can't, because every mile is... is different.
You have the Rio Grande, you have the canyons,
the Chihuahuan Desert, and you already have
a physical barrier called mountains.
In some areas where Border Patrol response time
is measured in hours to days,
a wall is not a physical barrier, right?
In some places, where there is urban to urban contact,
a fence makes sense, because Border Patrol can measure the response time
in seconds to minutes.
But doing it in the desert and in Big Bend,
that's just crazy.
Building a wall from sea to shining sea
is the most expensive and least effective way
to do border security.
[Speaking Spanish]
Another beautiful morning in the Rio Grande.
[Filipe] We're going to Mexico!
[Heather] Doin' it, guys!
[Mexican music]
[Immigration officer speaking in Spanish]
I'm officially in Mexico. Ahay!
[Austin] Let's go get tacos.
[Speaking Spanish]
- [Mexican song playing] - Oh!
- [Austin] Oh! - [Jay] Oh my gosh!
- Oh, man! - [Jay laughing]
- [Filipe] Oh, these enchiladas? - [Heather] Um, so excited.
Oh my gosh!
- Mmm. - [Ben] I have two spoons.
- [Austin] Oh my God! - [Ben] I mean two forks.
[Heather] Perfect.
- Hi, welcome. - Thanks so much.
Would you like to sit down?
- Welcome. - Thank you!
Thank you for eating our food. I hope you like it.
- It was delicious! - The food is so good!
Tell her, to eat one of these tacos
is like being kissed by an angel.
So, how long has this restaurant been in your family?
[Ben] Oh my god, I'm full.
[Background chatter]
Jay, you got the time?
11 to.
[Speaking Spanish]
- [Laughing] - [Speaking Spanish]
This is gonna be like my Christmas present this year.
[Filipe] Spread the wealth. Spread the wealth. It stops.
Chalo!
- Pleasure to meet you. - Very nice to meet you.
Chalo here is telling us about the uh, power plant
that we should go check out. From there it's a really good view to look through.
But it's a... it's a solar power plant.
- This is all solar power. - [Jay] No way.
It's the one that provides electricity
- to the whole town here. - You're kidding.
What do you believe would happen here in Boquillas
if a wall were constructed?
What would be affected...
is the wildlife.
Because there, if we look here is a mountain range here
and a mountain range over there.
And these mountain ranges share the wildlife.
Here, we've seen bears,
black bears, lions.
The lions come down specifically because there's a river,
so they walk down from the mountain.
The wildlife is something we value here
apart from everything else, it's also an attraction for tourism.
What do you think
It's been eighty years that
we've been thinking and talking about a binational park.
What do you think is necessary
to make it a reality?
I would like it, and would love to see it happen.
I am willing to put my part in what is necessary
But people are needed with the drive,
that come with a positive outlook, not with a negative one.
[Epic music]
There's been talk about a binational park for decades.
There's millions of acres that are already held
in public trust by both countries.
It's time to see somebody step forward
and really shepherd that and bring that into fruition.
[Heather] It would be a really natural step.
There's already huge protected lands on both sides.
The river itself is wild and scenic.
There's populations of bear and mountain lion
and birds and butterflies moving back and forth
between the two protected areas.
It blows my mind. So many times I found myself saying: "This is in Texas?
Like we're not in Montana or Yellowstone or Yosemite."
You know, this place is legendary.
It's Texas' last chance to create something truly great
as far as a huge intact ecosystem.
And we can't do it without Mexico.
[Ben] On the last big horseback journey, we rode through
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park on the US-Canada border,
created to symbolize a friendship
and a shared ecosystem between the two countries.
That same opportunity exists here.
And it's a completely different way
to look at the US-Mexico border.
[Epic music]
[Filipe] Whoa, we got shadows!
Yay, that's our goal!
- [Filipe] Ben, get a photo! - [Ben] I got it.
- [Austin] Yeah, that's so neat. - [Heather] Wow!
[Austin] Isn't nature neat?
[Heather] I... Good job, nature.
- [Filipe] Good job. - [Ben] Well, after riding bicycles and riding horses,
we've all come to the agreement that they are
a far superior form of transportation.
[All shouting]
[Gentle guitar music]
Alright, Tough.
[Jay] Come on, donkey.
[Ben] I think we might have to pick her up.
Come on, girlfriend.
- [Jay] Aw! - [Heather] Aw!
- [Jay] That's a good girl - [Heather] Great donkey.
- [Heather] Ben, you... - Ben, you stay in there.
Actually, I feel like staying with my horses.
Bye, ponies.
I miss you already.
Oh! Be good, horses.
- [Heather] Stay well, guys. - See you, Star.
Don't let anybody else ride you.
That goes for the rest of your life.
Donkey, now, you too.
- Oh, see, donkey is calling you. - Man.
It's sad to see him go.
Let's go get us some canoes.
Aw!
[Gentle music]
[Ben] Springs flow in to the Rio Grande
and Big Bend National Park,
and there is now enough water to paddle a canoe.
For the next 150 miles,
we are going to travel through Boquillas Canyon
and the Lower Canyons, an area so special,
and so rugged that it is federally protected
as a wild and scenic river.
[Austin] I think we needed to take account
of what exactly we're doing right now.
We're going into the most wild places
in the state of Texas.
We are going into true wilderness
where there's no support.
Like our vehicles have us supported on.
I think all of us,
we should have a higher sense of risk management.
[Jay] We got high pressure,
500 cfs and 15 miles to go today.
750 left in the journey.
Feelin' pretty good.
[Austin] The river does not discriminate, it can be any of us.
There is three kinds of boatmen.
One that has flipped, one that is going to flip,
and one that is flipping.
That's a fact.
[Austin] Oh!
- [Filipe] Oh, Austin dissipated. - [Heather] What does that mean?
- [Heather] Oh shit. - [Austin] Oh shit.
- Oh shit. - [Austin chuckling]
- [Filipe] Stay there, Ben. - No, no!
[All] No! No! No! No! No!
- [Filipe] Not the camera again, guys! - [Heather] Oh my God!
[Filipe] There you go, there you go.
[Austin] It was good to acknowledge that things can go bad.
[Austin] And they can go bad really fast and really easy.
Make it on the...
I know we just like to s... like we were talking about just
like going and learning on the river,
but like if we can't handle this,
we got no business going up to Lower Canyons.
[Epic music]
[Jay] Yeah, I think Ben might have seen them first.
We kind of rounded the Bend and they had been drinking out of the river end.
[Jay] We pulled off and they were uh, probably a dozen desert sheep.
[Heather] There's at least one up there with a collar.
[Jay] Could you give an estimate with out...
[Jay] It was pretty spectacular to have actually
seen them utilizing the river.
That... that sort of hit home to me that that's their water source.
All you're you seeing is a cool effort
between US and Mexico, 'cause those sheep,
they have no idea which side of the river is which?
And they're probably... they're down here
like drinking from the Rio and probably cross over,
- go into Mexico. - You think they'll cross into Mexico and...
- Oh, for sure. - Yeah?
They've got collar data,
they just use...
They go all across in here.
Yeah, it's a cool history, because they were completely eliminated
out of this area.
And then about 50 years ago,
they started bringin' them back. And they went from zero
to where they now have over 2,000 of 'em.
It's like this huge story of conservation...
- [Filipe] Ben's boat! - Success in this area.
- [Heather] Oh shit! - [Jay] Oh shit.
- [Chuckling] - Guys, help!
- Hold this. - I got distracted by the sheep.
- [Chuckling] - [Austin] You got a paddle?
- He doesn't have a paddle! - [Heather screaming]
He's... he's gonna rev, Jay!
[Laughing]
[Filipe] He doesn't know how to paddle.
He's never steered before!
[Gentle music]
[Jay] This environment on the river,
Austin's just had a lot of experience
and so he really knows how to like pace the group,
he knows how to run rapids, he knows how to scale.
That was a new part of Austin that we hadn't seen previously.
This is a first class 3 that we've seen
this entire time out here.
We've got our rescue line ready
in case he flips and has to bend his boat.
Here we go.
Slight tip to the right. Bow to the right.
Wooh!
[Heather] No thanks.
Alright, I'm up.
Paddle hard, take chances, y'all!
[Austin cheering]
[Upbeat music]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Filipe] You guys are makin' this look easy.
- [Heather] Jay, come on! - [Cheering]
[Austin] Stream it up, stream it up, stream it up, stream it up!
[Cheering]
Yeah, that was great. I loved it.
Alright, everybody else nailed it.
So uh, we gotta have one spill, right?
[Filipe] Oh my god.
- [Filipe] Oh no! - [All yelling]
[Cheering]
[Heather] That's it, that's it, that's it.
[Laughing]
[Austin] You lucky son of a bitch!
Hey, I tried to make it interesting for you!
[Heather] People are not thinking of this area
when they're picturing the border
and building a border wall.
I think they're thinking of the cities.
It's this wild place that's super rugged
and hard to get through anyway.
Why would we construct a barrier there?
A manmade barrier.
This is like going through the Grand Canyon,
paddling the Colorado without the crowds.
It's just as... as remote, and grand, and wild.
[Birds chirping]
[Austin] One of my biggest joys is that I get to show people
what I love, and that's the Rio Grande.
The first time it impacted me was when I came here in college.
Uh, I was actually coming here to train to be a river guide
and the first trip I ever did was Dark Canyon,
which is a short, but tall canyon.
Short in length, tall in height canyon
in the State Park.
And I fell in love with what's easy to fall in love with
you know, beauty, the grandness, the... the just
total uh, magnificence of the Rio Grande.
And then the more I explored, the more I just,
for lack of better words, was wowed!
[Epic music]
And lately I've been thinking about how...
I got into this whole outdoor recreation industry
for a lot of reasons and one of which...
which... that I've never really admitted to myself
is I've grown up as the child of illegal immigrants.
Status is a really big thing
as much... you know, I... My parents are really proud.
They... they taught me that you know, you...
you work for everything you have and you...
you don't ask for things, you earn things.
But I'd be lying to tell you that as a child of an...
of illegal immigrants,
status was in... in the back of my head.
And it... it sounds awful and I hate to admit it,
but it has been.
Like why couldn't my parents learn English?
Why couldn't they know how the school system worked?
I just didn't understand.
I was angry, I was mad.
And the outdoors, the Rio Grande,
that's somewhere where status doesn't matter, you know?
It is a true level playing field.
And I find that...
my connection to the Rio Grande,
my connection to the Big Bend is really founded on that.
It's such an equalizer.
Alright, so this is where we have to figure out
where we wanna pull it to the right
around this penile crap right here,
which we wanna avoid,
or run the shoot on the left side
down the actual Madison Falls.
I don't know how the hell... I mean I'm...
don't know what I'm doing regardless, but I don't know how you would
- do this in a canoe. - [Heather indistinct]
Yeah, like how is it like... This is only a Kayak City, right?
[Indistinct]
[Jay] Oh gosh! See, that's...
- [Ben] Oh shit. - [Heather] Oh shit.
[Jay] Oh.
Oh!
[Filipe] See, that's what I was worried about. Yeah.
Ben, are you going? Are you still goin'?
[Ben laughing]
- [Filipe] Yeah! - [Austin] Yeah!
- [Cheering] - [Filipe] Yeah.
Spin yourself before you back yourself in.
- [Filipe] Get it straight on! Go on! Stay left. - [Jay] Stay left! Go high!
- [Jay] He's hit it. - [Filipe] No, he's got it, he's got it!
- [Filipe] Oh! - [Jay] Oh shit.
[Jay] He's stuck.
[Filipe] Ben, don't get caught underneath!
[Grunting]
I can't move it!
[Austin] Can we get on that corner? Hang up, hang up, hang up!
Stop, stop.
[Austin] On the count of three.
One, two, three.
[Grunting]
- [Grunts] - [Austin] Let it go, let it go.
[Jay] Okay, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go.
- [Heather] Watch out, watch out. - [Filipe] Watch out, JK!
[Jay] You want me to get in it?
[Austin] What, oh no, no!
[Heather] Oh man.
[Ben] Well.
[Austin] Oh, no. It's already taking in water.
[Grunting]
[Austin] Oh, ho, ho, ho.
[Heather] Come on, Jay, come on, Jay.
[Indistinct yelling]
[Austin yells]
[High pitched tone]
[Heather] That looked kinda scary.
[Heather] Fell.
[Austin] Two, and three.
[Filipe] There goes the bag. There goes the bag.
[Ominous music]
[Campfire]
[Jay] I don't know, I feel... I feel good. I feel like everybody's
had a little bit of a wakeup call
and uh, we should have a good day
today, hopefully stay dry.
[Ben] The weather forecast is calling for lows in the low 20s
with 20 to 30 mile per hour north winds
with gusts up to 40.
That is our tailwind.
So, we're getting to make lemonade
out of these weather lemons.
[Bird chirping]
- [Jay] Good one. - [Chuckling]
You had time for the...
- for the thing to make time for. - [Ben] Yeah, make time for you.
[Jay] Yeah.
[Ben] It's not ideal, but it's the way that it is.
[Smooth drum brushes]
[Banjo music]
So we've been paddling for 30-plus miles now
and we're entering the main body of Lake Amistad.
♪ I've lived without bread ♪
♪ And I've lived without water ♪
♪ Stuck outside the middle Of the desert ♪
♪ Wishin' I was home ♪
♪ Long way from nowhere ♪
♪ Wishin' I was somewhere ♪
♪ Sangre de Cristo ♪
♪ To the Devil's Backbone ♪
[upbeat music]
We're doing just great!
Hey, Heather!
- Only... - Howdy, Ben.
Only 12 more miles
- directly into the headwind. - [Heather chuckling]
Twelve more miles to get some white caps on the lake,
but the sun is out today.
♪ In the back of a Ranchero ♪
♪ I rode down to Laredo ♪
♪ Had a good time at the La Posada ♪
♪ Yeah, you know I was left alone ♪
♪ On a rig out of El Paso ♪
♪ Rainin' down in Houston ♪
♪ Told the truck driver Put the pedal to the metal ♪
♪ 'Cause Houston gets me down ♪
♪ On down to Louisiana ♪
♪ Whiskey River Landing ♪
♪ Crawfish pie And eat jambalaya ♪
♪ With a big old coonass smile ♪
[upbeat music]
[Cheering]
[Cheering and laughing]
[Ben] We are now done with the Canyon Country
and Lake Amistad.
The terrain here flattens out, there's more people,
and a border wall already exists along most of the towns and cities.
But the open country doesn't have a wall yet.
So we met up with rancher Steve Lamantia
to see how it will affect his operation.
Water in... in this part of the country is life.
So water is very important to us.
Without the water, we... we can't operate.
My name is Steve Lamantia.
[Steve] I am in charge of the ranch operation.
Basically been on the river or on the border my whole life.
But for the longest time we always considered Mexico
and the US as one. And no division uh, because there was
such a fluid movement of people back and forth.
My wife and I... my children grew up with kids
from Mexico when going back and forth to Mexico
was like goin' across the street.
People don't really understand the border, I think,
that are... that are... that are talking about it.
They don't take the time to come down here and look at it.
So did you know that Border Patrol was down here?
No, they have... I give 'em open access.
They... they... they built the ramp
- and part of the deal was... - Oh.
Them building the ramp was they can use it whenever.
The landowners are in favor of additional border security.
A physical wall does not accomplish border security in my opinion.
We don't want the federal government taking our land, obviously.
I think most of the landowners will fight it tooth and nail
besides of the fact that you are taking
very independently mind... minded landowners
and it's a land grab.
They are taking their land away from 'em
and they don't have the right to say no.
Uh, and that's gonna leave a very poor taste in the mouths
of a lot of people on this river.
So basically, from within about 400 miles upriver
of the Gulf of Mexico, the uh... the communities
on both sides of the border rely on the Rio Grande river
for agricultural and residential use.
[Steve] No question.
So you're saying it may not be a good idea
to wall ourselves away from the only good water in the desert?
That would be a pretty good assessment.
- Okay, good. - [Laughing]
[Steve] There is a... a labor pool here that is not being satisfied
and can be satisfied by immigrants
coming to this country,
which has happened for 250 years.
If that is happening, which I think is happening right now,
then I see no reason why it shouldn't continue
and I see no reason why those people need
to be here under the radar.
And maybe I'm not smart enough to understand the problem,
but if there is a need for the labor,
and they come over here and they are working
and holding down a job, then why sh...
Why don't we want 'em?
[Victoria] In the 1940s, as a result of World War II,
we had a system called the Bracero Program
where Mexican farm laborers were coming over,
and they were working in American fields
while uh, our US men were abroad fighting in Europe
and our American women were in... in factories.
[Narrator on the TV] The fact is we still don't have enough seasonal domestic labor
willing to do this kind of work.
In 1965, the Bracero Program officially ends.
But that doesn't mean that these patterns
that were established, end.
So the agricultural interest kept asking for the labor
and the labor kept coming.
This bill is the most comprehensive reform
of our immigration law since 1952.
Including employer sanctions, other measures
to increase enforcement of the immigration laws
and legalization.
What happened was that the key component
of employer sanction was never put into place.
It was illegal, but everybody you know, wink, wink, nod, nod,
this is going on.
Fast-forward to the early 1990s,
immigration becomes a flashpoint.
There is too much of it and we must do much more to stop it.
[Victoria] And at this point we see what we know
as the modern-day border infrastructure,
not just physically, but also in terms of personnel.
As a result it was harder for immigrants
to go back and forth.
And once they were there, they weren't going to leave,
because again, every year
the border got harder and harder to cross.
So now, we have this larger permanent
undocumented population in the United States.
This is the first wall we've seen since just outside of El Paso.
The wall that's right there,
that was built under Secure Fence Act
during the Bush administration, so it's probably...
probably 10 years old now.
And the wall that they are calling for,
that President Trump wants to build
is gonna be probably 10 feet higher than that.
Solid concrete, so you wouldn't be able to look through it.
And then also it'd have these massive flood lights
that look into the river and along.
And then they would clear out all the brush,
and all the vegetation, and trees.
[Filipe] One of the things that's unfortunate,
that we've noticed, this is Mexico on our right,
this is the US on our left,
and we have forfeited all this land
to become no-man's land,
which means that nobody from the US side
is enjoying this river right now except for us.
And all the Mexican side is fishing, throwing parties,
you can hear people playing soccer,
families are out walking around enjoying the river,
and it's obviously very much a part of life
in this section of the Rio Grande.
And how sad is that? Nobody from the US side
can enjoy this beautiful pristine river right now.
A wall completely deters any recreational activity
from the Rio in this stretch.
[Filipe] Get a little bit closer.
[Austin] Okay.
[Filipe] Growing up an illegal immigrant,
every single day you live in fear.
You feel that your options are limited,
that there are so many things stacked against you
that you can never outgrow your environment.
And therefore, this situation that you're in
will always remain.
But because of our financial status,
not having a lot of money,
when my mom would tell us to go do something,
it was: "Get the hell outside".
Doesn't cost anything to go run around outside,
to go get lost in the woods, to climb a tree,
to go look for animals.
The natural world saved me.
So becoming a wildlife photographer
and working with National Geographic
was my goal in life.
[Host] So Nat Geo's Geoff Daniels here. Nat Geo, come on up.
- [Crowd cheering] - To announce the Wild to Inspire...
- Wild to Inspire winner. - There you go, guys, there you go.
But the winner for the 2nd annual Wild to Inspire competition
- is Filipe DeAndrade! - [Cheering]
[Host] Up! Filipe, come on up.
[Cheering]
[Host 2] come up, Filipe, come on, man.
[Filipe] Whether it be through photography, video,
everything that I do comes back
to making the world a better place for animals.
[Filipe] I have to thank my mom, because for everything...
- [Crowd cheering] - For everything that we've been through
as immigrants, abuse, coming over here,
struggle, every single thing.
You fought... - you fought for what you loved.
[Crowd cheering]
[Filipe] I'm so grateful that she brought us here,
and that I get to travel the world
and talk about what I love.
My mom is by far and large my greatest...
my greatest example in life.
[Filipe] When she became a citizen,
I asked her: "What do you wanna do?"
And she said: "I wanna be a nurse at the VA.
I wanna take care of veterans who took care of us,
and that is my contribution to the country that I am now a citizen in."
And that makes me so damn proud.
- [Austin] There it is. - [Jay] Wow!
Wow!
There are so many.
- What's up, Stevie? - How are you?
[Austin] Good, man!
- [Ben] Nice to meet you. - Stevie Sauer.
Yeah, Ben Masters.
We hadn't like gotten to talk to anybody on the camera.
- [Stevie] Alright. - Alright, can you do that?
So the only reason I can do that is 'cause I'm...
Uh, I told you uh, I'm with the Union
of Del Rio Sector. So on behalf of the Union, I'm talkin' to you.
[Stevie] I've been in Border Patrol for nine and a half years.
I am a Executive Vice President for Del Rio Sector Union.
If we put a wall up from sea to shining sea,
people are still gonna cross it.
I've been detailed to Nogales,
and there's a wall through downtown Nogales,
and people cross it, go over it, go through it.
There's more damage that's done to a wall you know,
with just the will power. People just trying to get across.
Do you think it's something that if it doesn't happen
in the next three years, will continue
to be raised as a potential solution?
The wall's always gonna be a topic of discussion.
[Stevie] I think it's always gonna be continued
to be raised as a deterrent of guys crossing.
They're not a solution to the immigration problems,
because there is... there is more than just a wall to fix it.
If... if you've got ants coming inside your house,
we've already got walls, you know.
They're finding a way to get in.
So we've gotta... we've gotta find out
the solution and what that is.
Do you fix it with technology? Do you fix it with more...
more boots on the ground?
Do you...
In your opinion w... what... what's...
what's the solution with... with response time?
Uh, you can have all the technology you need,
but if you don't have anybody to put handcuffs on anybody
or to question them as far as the alien, there isn't...
The technology is great, because we detected 'em,
but we didn't have anybody to arrest 'em.
Have you noticed a drop-off or an increase in people
coming over to the US?
The numbers are down, have decreased. Yeah.
[Filipe] Significantly or you know like...
- Significantly. - Really?
Just had a little spin out.
They're showin' off there.
[Crew member] They definitely...
made themselves known.
Absolutely, you can hear them from a mile away.
- [Cheering] - [Speaking in Spanish]
- [Cheering] - [Austin] Oh my gosh,
is that a catfish?
That's probably like a 40...
oh my gosh, both of those!
Hello! How much do they weigh?
Eight each!
Wow! The big one!
How long have you been here?
Just a day!
Just a day fishing for those?
We are bad fishermen.
[Laughing]
[Ben] Wow!
[Mexican music playing]
This is our work.
We bring them to the Piedras Negras fish markets.
Do you want to eat...
"fish of the cat"?
[Speaking Spanish]
[Ben] Is that catfish?
It's about right.
Is it a kind that you only have here?
The whole river.
But we don't go fishing over there.
If they see us over there they'll take us because they think we're wetbacks.
And you as Mexicans, what do you and your friends think of the wall?
They'll just fly over it like Superman.
And have you seen a lot of people crossing here?
Yes, tons.
With drugs.
But the demand for drugs is over there in the US, eh?
They're not going to stop.
Be very careful when you get down near Guerrero.
Yeah, they were telling us that.
How is it around here? Calm?
It's calm here - but the Zeta's (cartel) Are down there.
Are they well armed?
Yes.
The narcotraficantes in Northern Mexico
are making roughly... and this is a conservative number,
$50 billion. That's almost the equivalent
of the entire budget for the Intelligence Community
of the United States of America.
[Will] To make $50 billion, you're not bringing it in
you know, in a backpack alone.
You're bringing it in in significant weights
and that's happening through um, our ports of entry.
[Beto] All of this is connected, all of this is correlated.
If... if you look at the billions of dollars that we spend
on consuming illegal drugs in this country,
we can see the connection between our use of illegal drugs
uh, the c... the cartels' bottom line,
the resources that they can bring to bear
on hollowing out the civil institutions,
whether that's the courts, whether that's the... the press,
whether that's the... the police force,
whether that's their... their politics.
Destabilizing that country to such a degree
that it's hard to argue with somebody
who would seek to leave it to find a better life
somewhere else, ironically here in America,
the country that is in part producing um,
some of the problems with the consumption of those drugs,
the flow of cash and arms back into Mexico.
So against everybody's advice, we are paddling into the night,
which I'm not too comfortable about
just because this is a fairly high drug traffic corridor
of US-Mexico border.
But we're trying to get to a location
where we have permission to stay at
and uh...
I don't know where everybody else is.
Like I don't know if they...
I don't know if they took a different
channel of the river,
if they're in front of me
or if they're behind me.
It's kind of a bad time to...
[sniffles]
...get separated.
- Hey, Heather. - [Austin] So, that's, that's, so the reason why we called you
there are some concerns about this. One, it's dark,
do we still cross at the crossing?
[Heather] I think there's people over on that bank.
[Austin] It looked like they were carrying bags and stuff.
[Filipe] Yeah, when we... when we looked down,
we saw... we saw groups of people.
- [Heather] They were even boats. - [Filipe] 'Cause we thought it was...
[Austin] You thought it was Ben. I was about to yell out
and Jay said: "Hold on, don't say anything." And he was right.
It was people over there, definitely not Ben.
Um, but they were definitely throwing bags of stuff back.
Border Patrol and everybody that lives on the river said: "Don't do the river at night
uh, because that's when most people
- are gonna be crossing." - Like I think
makin' ourselves known being here
- is probably a good thing. - [Heather] Yeah.
I don't think approaching 'em
is a great idea either.
But uh, you don't wanna
like sneak up on them
- by any means. - [Heather] I know.
That's when you run into a bad situation.
Either drug smugglers or people trying to cross,
either way you don't wanna...
be in the middle of that and that's exactly where we're at right now.
So you guys are definitely ahead of us.
- [Filipe] Okay. - Uh, and...
I'm uh... we're gonna start going forward towards you
with our lights on.
[Filipe] Alright, we're gonna stay put
and then we'll decide as a group.
We'll have our lights on here as well.
Uh, you just be careful.
So there is their lights.
At least I hope it's their lights.
Looks good.
[Sighs]
- So we should get out of here. - [Jay] Yeah, we should.
- Like as soon as possible. - [Heather] Yeah.
And then getting down and camping
as soon as we see a camp spot.
Okay. Do you... We were just discussing briefly
like should we like tell Stevie or Border Patrol
or just... just go?
Yeah, we should call Stevie and let him know.
- Okay, yeah. - Like if something happens to us then...
Yeah, yeah. No, I...
[Ben] Like...
Deal.
You got the number? You want this?
- Here. - It's like we stopped.
If we went around this right here, we would have seen people.
I don't like this at all. And they were right there?
- Yeah, they were right there. - And you all just stopped right here?
- [Heather] No, I mean... - Let's get the fuck out of here, man.
Didn't know if you guys were behind us.
- [Austin] This... this is a... - [Heather] Alright.
- [Heather] Good timing. - [Austin] Yeah.
I have to admit I jumped to immediate bad conclusion.
You guys said: "Backpacks and people crossing",
the first thing that came to my head was running drugs,
like the very first thing that popped into my head.
[Austin] And they... they might have been, but, uh...
[Ben] Yeah.
But we don't know that.
[Ben] Well, it's such a conundrum, because
like the people that are crossing, you know,
under different circumstances that could have been you.
Or you.
Yeah. And that is the predicament. Like I was sitting there
and I was like if those are families or people
who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I don't wanna call.
But if those are drug smugglers, I do wanna call.
[Austin] I talked to my parents about it
and told them I came upon some people,
and well, they asked me you know: "what...
What were they wearing, what were they doing,
this or that" and...
And I kinda described the situation and they...
And they asked us what we did, and I was like:
"Well, we... we called Border Patrol."
And they... they understood, they got it,
and they said, : "Oh man, poor people."
Um.
They said that was them 30 years ago.
[Gentle music]
[Austin] In Guatemala, they... they were making three bucks a day.
They were living in a little room,
them and my older brother, my dad, he had
family members and friends who had either been, you know, harassed, mugged or killed.
I mean it was genocide.
My mom, she was very willing to do whatever she had to do
to get over here.
She tried to come over a couple of times.
Someone had snitched on her.
Mom and my older brother were locked up in Mexico
when they got caught by immigration there in Mexico.
Mom would ask to work in jail so she...
So she could get money and food to feed my brother
while they're in jail.
I don't wanna discredit the... the crossing of the river, it is significant.
But my parents had... My, my family felt that fear the entire time.
And it was... and they still thought they...
that fear years after crossing.
[Gentle music]
[Austin] When I was first born, it was probably uh, 15 of us
in one house.
It was tough.
My parents, they heard this radio announcement
about, um people helping illegal immigrants
get their residency,
but they have to report themselves
and state that they're there illegally.
My mom, she began crying immediately
and they're like: "We're... we need to deport you now."
In my parents' eyes,
the American dream were
to send three kids to college
and have enough to make a living and... and be satisfied,
and they've exceeded that.
I am no longer embarrassed of who I am, where I come from.
I'm very proud of my parents.
Very proud.
And hopefully uh, one day I can pay 'em back.
[Ben] Today is a big day.
We are switching from canoes to bicycles,
because we're now in an area where there is a wall,
but the wall is so far away from the river
that you can't even see it from the river in some spots.
[Filipe] Let's ride.
- [Cheering] - [Heather] Let's ride.
[Austin] Ben Masters is a determined, dedicated,
uncoordinated son of a gun.
He is so great for so many reasons,
but coordination is not one of them.
And to see him on the bicycle,
after paddling and being on a horseback,
is uh, one of my greatest joys in life now.
He is...
so bad on a bicycle.
But dang it, he's doin' it.
[Ben] The Lower Rio Grande Valley has the most illegal crossings
and drug traffic along the US-Mexico border.
♪ Running astray ♪
[Ben] It already has some existing border wall
and is priority for future wall construction.
♪ I dream of you ♪
[Ben] The Rio Grande here twists and turns,
but the border wall will be built on straight lines,
on levees and irrigation canals,
sometimes miles from the border.
Effectively stranding American land
between the river and the wall.
- Are you all doing dry land or uh, irrigation? - All irrigated.
All... all irrigated, all the water coming out of the Rio Grande River.
Our river pumps are on the banks of the Rio Grande river.
We will have to go through the wall,
to get to our pumps,
which is the lifeblood of the irrigated farms.
The concern is we're giving up a tremendous amount of... of
an area that... that is some of the most
productive farmland in the world.
Uh, alluvial soils from the Rio Grande river
with a 365-day growing period.
So, there's a lot of impact south
of where they're going to place the wall.
Where is the border? Is the border on the river, or is the border at the wall?
Because there's three quarters of a mile difference.
I don't want it to be just a one-time photo op,
and then my uh, kids, and grandkids,
and future generations have to live
with their farm being cut in half.
Once the wall goes up, that's it.
You can't redo it, you can't undo it.
And I think it's easy for people in Washington DC
to make decisions without having some input
from the people who actually live here.
There's just something
kind of un-American about it to me,
and it's all part of the United States.
When they talk about Homeland Security,
we're part of the Homeland.
The wall will be on this side of the river road...
of the levee road.
Uh, and will be a vertical wall
where they will peel off this side of the... of the levee
and build a vertical concrete wall.
For us, it's 350 acres,
for Steve's family, it's 500 acres,
for Santana, it's 2,000 acres.
So just within the stretch of a couple of miles,
you've got almost 3,000 acres of land
that is going to be ceded to Mexico
um, because it's gonna be south of the wall.
We're not gonna control the area south of the wall anymore.
[Dramatic music]
[Birds chirping]
[Heather] It's kind of crazy down here,
getting estimates of the number of individuals,
'cause you have these huge flocks flying over
and swarms of swallows.
Trying to estimate how many individuals you're seeing
In my bird surveys along the entire Rio Grande,
I detected over 150 species.
There's such a huge diversity.
The bird community in the Rio Grande Valley
is like completely different.
Many of these are species
that you wouldn't see anywhere else in the US.
It's the biggest birding destination
in the country.
If you just woke up here,
just listen to it,
you would think you're in the tropics.
That's a golden-fronted calling.
The Rio Grande Valley is
one of the most critical habitats
for birds, butterflies, and bats in North America.
This subtropical habitat that is really nowhere else
in the United States.
The Rio Grande Valley is along different migratory routes
for birds, butterflies and bats.
There's this huge collaboration
between public and private organizations,
and they've linked this string of pearls,
this native habitat along the Rio Grande
to preserve this area for native species.
The border wall would be built along the levee
with an enforcement zone.
In this region, where there's only 5%
of remaining native habitat,
this enforcement zone would be bulldozing
a... a sizable portion of what's left.
In a flood situation
terrestrial animals could get caught up in floodwaters.
Having the border wall, species like the Texas tortoise
and ocelots could die in these rising flood waters,
because there wouldn't be any way for them to escape.
This could become a death trap.
It occurred to me along the journey
that in... in some of these areas,
there may have never been a formal bird survey
and there may never be another one done
before it's changed forever.
I felt honored and... to see the area before that,
but also saddened by the fact that it may soon change.
I think when people use that term "build a wall",
there are some that do believe it needs to be a structure.
Um, I do believe there's others that wanna see what...
what I would term "operational control of our border".
[Will] We should be able to know what's coming back and forth
across our border.
Nobody disagrees with that.
And since our technology is so cheap now,
it's basically disposable.
And that technology can tell the difference
between a jackrabbit and a person coming across the border.
And if that sensor gets triggered,
you can deploy men and women. The Border Patrol will do the one thing
that only they can do, interdiction, stopping this.
We can do that today
and that is not the kind of technology
that we are giving our men and women in Border Patrol
to do their job about keeping us safe
and... and securing our border.
And again, it's a fraction of the cost
of uh, building a... a concrete structure
that you can go over or... or dig under.
[Beto] For me, the... the answer is not gonna be walls
or fences or physical barriers,
it is gonna be ensuring
that our immigration laws match our reality,
uh, what our true needs are in this country,
what our values are,
and, um, do so in keeping with the best traditions
of Texas and this country.
Bipartisanship has become
a rare sight in Washington, but on Tuesday,
Mother Nature brought two Texas lawmakers together.
Their flights back to DC were cancelled, because of the snow.
So representatives Will Hurd and Beto O'Rourke
decided to take to the road to get back to work
and talked policy and personal matters along the way.
And what I have found is that working with Republicans
um, being able to not allow the perfect
to become the enemy of the good
um, and uh, just focus on making things better
um, you can make some progress.
And we can also disagree without being disagreeable.
The competition of ideas is what has made this country greatest,
what's made this experiment called "America" work.
[Will] And way more unites us than divides us.
Uh, then we can get a bigger... a bigger car next time
and bring a few more people.
The rhetoric around all of this
that is uh, something that um, we can't let continue to happen.
When people in Mexico hear our president denigrate
that country, vilify Mexicans,
refer to Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals,
promise to build a 2,000-mile wall
that will cost $30 billion
and say that Mexico is gonna have to pay for it
um, Mexicans remind themselves that they have
other potential partners around the globe.
[Beto] They are deepening trade relationships
with others at our expense.
The rhetoric will come at a cost to our country.
And we have to improve um, our understanding
of an area that so many people talk about,
but many people have never been and don't understand.
- [Laughing] - [Ben] But you just sit there and you look at it,
- go, "Wow, oh my god" you know, like... - These people
that are crossing, how hard can it be?
- It looks scalable. - [Ben] Oh yeah.
[Filipe] I mean it's... it's America.
[Filipe] Especially with the wide-angle lens on,
it looks even that much more intimidating.
You gotta do it with a fisheye.
- I'm just curious now. - [Austin laughing]
[Filipe] I'm just curious, I just wanna see if it's...
- lf you jump on a 747. - [Austin laughing]
Oh, there's a nice little cup holder here for you, too.
[Austin] That was it?
[Filipe] Alright, so here is...
[taking deep breaths]
The wall.
[Filipe] There is Mexico, there is the US,
there is me!
There is the wall,
there is Border Patrol in the distance.
Not too uh... not too difficult.
[Gentle music]
Seeing people cross,
we were afraid
and alarmed
and unsure of the situation.
And to realize that those people were also alarmed
and afraid
and unsure of the situation.
And we felt that feeling for such a small instant
when we saw those groups of people crossing.
And it was... it was... it was stressful, it was tiring,
and to feel that for years, and years, and years
made me realize...
that there is a bigger issue than the actual crossing into the country.
[Austin] If you think that someone who's desperate enough
to move from Guatemala to Austin,
and you think they're just gonna turn right around,
because they see a wall in front of 'em...
That's absurd.
That wanting a better life,
that's the issue that needs to be approached.
[Gentle guitar music]
[Cheering]
[Jay] Preemptive wooh, we're not there yet.
Preemptive. Don't let go the boat just yet.
- White pelicans! - [Heather indistinct]
[Filipe] Skimmers, black skimmers!
[Heather] Skimmers, skimmers!
Done with this guy.
[Jay] It's bittersweet.
We become pretty close.
It's... I think it's gonna be like surreal
to finally see the Gulf and at the same time
like have a mix of emotions that like, this is... this is ending.
I'm gonna miss you guys.
- Yeah. - [Chuckling]
I'll miss you too, Ben.
[Soft music]
[Filipe] I thought that the border
was just this desolate no-man's land.
But when I actually came out here,
I despised the idea of a physical wall
and the reason that I started to hate it
is because this land, this country is damn beautiful.
[Heather] So tragic thinking about a border wall
cutting through some of the last remaining habitat
of this type...
that may be completely ineffective and unnecessary.
[Jay] I don't think any of us are ignorant to the challenges
um, in terms of immigration and drug passing.
I think it's just the fact that like what we learned so far,
this structure that could be so destructive
to the environment and the private property rights
and access to water,
that that destructive potential quote, unquote "solution"
is not a solution.
[Gentle guitar music]
[Ben] It's a distraction,
a distraction that ignores the root problems.
I feel honored to have seen and documented the Rio Grande
before it's potentially changed forever.
But it makes me so sad
to think that a political symbol and a king of pain promise
could destroy this beautiful landscape
that I've grown to love.
But I'm hopeful for a silver lining
that all the attention on the border
could lead to realistic immigration reform,
a more sensible way to approach border security,
and that the landscapes of the mighty Rio Grande
finally get the respect and the protection that they deserve.
[Gentle guitar music]
[Jay] I've been thinking about this for almost a year
and I cannot believe
that we are almost in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
[Cheering]
[Loud cheering]
[Epic music]
[Gentle guitar music]
[Ben] Every once in a while it just hits me that
the photos' and the videos that were taken here might be
some of the last
of the Rio Grande
before the wall is constructed.
♪ Can hear those coyotes cry ♪
It's just a crazy thing to think about.
♪ Won't be long before they're all gone ♪
♪ Just the highway is left ♪
♪ I had a big imagination ♪
♪ I lose it every day ♪
♪ I never use my education ♪
♪ Didn't learn anything ♪
♪ ♪