By Ignacio Ibarra
The Arizona Daily Star

AGUA PRIETA, Sonora - They wear sidearms and flak jackets, but their most important weapon is information.

The 10 agents of Grupo Beta here are an unusual mixture of cop and social worker, charged with protecting the migrants crossing through this city on their way to jobs in the United States.

The agents carry bottled water, advice and information pamphlets they pass on to as many as 700 migrants a night.

They begin their work just before sunset, when migrants and their guides fan out along the border in Agua Prieta city and in the desert east and west of it.

On a recent patrol of the city, Grupo Beta agents cruising an area two blocks from the border spotted 41 men, women and children sleeping in an abandoned bus on a vacant lot.

``We're not here to take any action against you or to keep you from doing what you plan to do,'' the coordinator of Grupo Beta here, Maria de la Paz Reyes, told the group.

``We're here to ensure that you are safe and that you know your rights. No one, especially a police officer, has the right to abuse or exploit you, no matter whether you are in Mexico or the United States.''

The agents passed out pamphlets outlining the risks the migrants face, their rights and a list of telephone numbers for the Mexican consulates and Grupo Beta units all along the border.

Members of the group, mainly from Jalisco, Guanajuato and Michoacan, explained that they were waiting for their crossing guide and were worried he may not show.

They also told the agents they were forced to pay 100 pesos each to men claiming to be police officers at a roadblock in the state of Aguascalientes.

A few minutes later, a man in another group walking to the border west of town said he and his friends were robbed during an earlier crossing attempt.

``They took $7 and my tennis shoes,'' he said.

Later in the evening Grupo Beta agents met up with a group of 17 migrants in the city. As she returned to the patrol truck, de la Paz Reyes turned back and told them, ``If you make it, find a job, work hard and don't forget you have family at home counting on you.''

De la Paz Reyes' experience is well suited to the duality of her job. She is a former social science teacher, federal prosecutor and judge who grew up in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, a border city across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.

But none of that fully prepared her for the situation she found here in May 1996, as the first wave of migrants driven by increased Border Patrol enforcement in California, Texas and Nogales descended on Agua Prieta.

``At that time there was a tremendous anarchy, there were people everywhere, hiding in the ditch waiting for a chance to run across,'' she said.

`` At the same time, the people were being victimized by everyone, by armed assailants, their smugglers, even by authorities whose job it was to protect them.''

The problem was complicated by community support for the migrants' right to emigrate to the United States, and opposition to police harassment of the migrant groups.

In one instance in 1996, Grupo Beta agents were surrounded by a crowd of angry merchants and customers when they tried to talk to a group of migrants at a local shopping center.

But the tragic drowning of eight people in a Douglas drainage ditch in August 1997, and the rescue of a young girl from a group of smugglers who held her hostage and abused her after she could not pay their fee, helped educate the public on the dangers faced by migrants.

Three years later, despite improved community support and the assistance of other law enforcement agencies and the Mexican military, the problems continue as the flood of migrants grows.

In recent weeks there have been at least two homicides in the area. Robberies and assaults are a nightly occurrence.

De la Paz Reyes said she worries about the many juveniles she sees among the smugglers and guides they encounter, and the long-term effects of their brush with lawlessness.

She added that a troubling development in the last year is the growing number of women and children among the transient migrant population.

The women know the risks, but they say they have no choice.

``It's a matter of necessity,'' said a 24-year-old Guadalajara woman traveling with a 6-year-old son at her side and an infant in her arms.