DOUGLAS, Ariz. -- It's no secret that people sneak into the United States from Mexico every day. But what has been kept under wraps is exactly who is coming in. NBC4's Chuck Henry went deep in the Arizona desert to find out.

It's a place that used to go by the name "Cocaine Alley" because of all the drugs that were smuggled through. But now some officials are more concerned about human smuggling, specifically illegal entry at the border by individuals who are not actually from Mexico. They're called "Special Interest Aliens," because they're coming from countries believed to be a threat.

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Border Threat

"People are coming here with bad intentions. I know of 10 that have been detained at my station alone," said a Border Patrol agent whose identity has been withheld at his request. He said this is something that agents have been told not to talk about.

"We know for a fact that people coming from the Middle East are now coming into Mexico and spending a year, even two years in Mexico, to learn how to speak Spanish," the Border Patrol agent told NBC4.

"The key is to pass yourself off as a Mexican," said retired Army Colonel Ben Anderson. He has been following what he calls the terrorist trail and connecting the dots on his website. He said it's a journey that begins on the other side of the world.

"You come out of Cairo International and you go either to England or Madrid. From there, you either go to Paraguay or Brazil. There is a huge infrastructure there waiting for you to learn how to speak Spanish. You're then going to transition your way up through Latin America ... into Mexico," Anderson said.

There's no way to tell exactly how many people are coming through the border at places where you can see gaping holes in what little fence there is. There's no way to tell how many people, where they're going, and for that matter, what they're bringing with them.

NBC4's Chuck Henry asked Anderson, "Why do you think a person would want to come here from that part of the world?" Anderson replied, "They don't want to come here to work at 7-Eleven."

Outside border towns it's often nothing more than parallel dirt roads -- One in Mexico and one in the US, separated by a small fence. It's been driven across, walked across, cut, trampled on and often it doesn't exist at all, leaving it easy for anyone to make a run for it.

"There are gaps of 50 to 60 miles that I know of that are completely wide open, " the Border Patrol agent told NBC4.

"Any American that thinks we have security on our southern border is mistaken, " said California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Not even members of Congress know exactly how many special interest persons have entered or have been detained at the border. Congressman Rohrabacher told NBC4, "They're going to try and make it here in the safest possible path."

It's a path Rohrabacher is trying to uncover. He and other members of Congress sent a letter to Homeland Security demanding answers to the most basic questions. "How many people have been stopped at our southern border who would be hostile and coming from hostile countries," Rohrabacher told NBC4. When Henry asked him if he had any idea of the answer, the Congressman replied, "it could be in the hundreds, it could be in the thousands."

"I think it would be incredibly naive, to the point of stupidity, to not believe we have terrorists coming through here," said Larry Vance, who lives on the border near Douglas, Ariz. He showed NBC4 a Middle Eastern prayer rug, found in the back yard of his house.

"They're coming through my back yard, but they're settling in your backyard," Vance told NBC4.

A warning that from Arizona, it's easy to get to cities like Los Angeles.

"They are not going to bother us at all. We are a transit area," Anderson tells NBC4.

And the residents of this border town say the door remains wide open.

"It's very easy for them to enter the country. When you go to bed tonight, our border is definitely not secure. I can tell you that for a fact," says the Border Patrol agent.

NBC4 called the Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security asking them to speak on camera about the issues surrounding "Special Interest Aliens." They declined.

RELATED LINKS:
Dept. of Homeland Security
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
Letter from Rohrabacher to DHS
Retired Colonel Ben Anderson's website