A few miles west of Green Valley — and just feet from a highly trafficked roadway — lies a patch of desert trashed by drug smugglers and illegal immigrants.

Piles of discarded clothing, backpacks and water jugs, wrapped in brown paper (for camouflage) mar the landscape.

A toddler's pink sock lies in the dirt near several burlap sacks used to smuggle narcotics.

The scene is a common one in remote areas of the Interstate 19 corridor, said Deputy Paul Petropolous of the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

“But we've been seeing more and more cases like this one, where they’re getting closer to homes and to people,” he said. “The coyotes are getting pretty brazen.”

Petropolous is a 10-year veteran of the Sheriff's Department and a member of the Border Crimes Unit, a special squad formed by Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik in April of 2007 to fight the increase of violent crimes occurring along southern Pima County’s volatile smuggler corridors.

The unit, made up of two sergeants and 14 deputies, patrols the desert regions near Green Valley, Tubac, Ajo and Arivaca.

Its focus is the rising problem of bajadores — the groups of Spanish-speaking bandits who stake out smugglers' routes to rob, assault and sometimes kidnap migrants or drug mules.

The unit conducts highway interdictions as well as night operations with thermal cameras, and is currently undergoing specialized training from the Department of Homeland Security.

“We deal with anything that has to do with violence created by the border,” Petropolous said.

Though unit members detain any illegal immigrants they find and turn them over to Border Patrol agents, immigrants are not the targets -- that's the Border Patrol’s job. Sheriff’s officers don’t have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

For that reason, Border Crimes Unit officers often won't pursue a vehicle they believe is carrying only illegal immigrants.

The other reason: “Many of these human smugglers have a real disregard for human life, and won't hesitate to risk the lives of everyone in the vehicle by speeding and driving erratically,” he said. “We don’t want to put anyone in danger.”

Petropolous says he's witnessed the cut-throat behavior first-hand.

If smugglers are traveling in a caravan of several vehicles carrying both illegal immigrant and narcotic loads, drivers will often “sacrifice” the human load during a police chase, he said, veering the vehicle off the road or into law enforcement vehicles to distract authorities from the one transporting the narcotics.

Not that those who smuggle migrants from local drop-off points to Phoenix or Tucson aren't paid well — the going rate is about $500 a head, said Petropolous.

“The problem is so incredibly multi-layered ... it's like a war zone out there, right under our noses.”

Recently, controversy arose over Dupnik's proposed plan to deputize a Border Patrol agent who would work with the Border Crimes Unit, opening up communication lines between the state and federal agencies.

Agents and officers literally can't communicate with each other due to differing radio technologies, which can be dangerous when both are scouting in the same location.

The issue went before the Pima County Board of Supervisors in January but was pulled from the agenda when the public expressed a generally unfavorable reaction.

Detractors said local and federal law enforcement should remain separate and that deputizing federal agents would blur the lines between the duties of each agency.

Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (“The Human Rights Group”) argued that it would promote racial profiling and “criminalize” immigrants.

Others said the move would promote distrust of Sheriff's officers and discourage the public from reporting certain crimes — for fear the Border Patrol would show up at their front door.

But Robert G. Daniels, spokesperson for the U.S. Border Patrol, said that both agencies would greatly benefit from the sharing of intelligence.

“It was never our intent to 'cross-pollinate' — to have more than one, or at the most, a handful of agents working with the Sheriff’s Department,” he said.

“It would make it a lot easier if a Border Patrol agent were assisting the squad,” said Petropolous. “There are so many more of them, and they know the terrain better than we do.”

Despite the defeat, Sheriff's officials say they hope to present another plan before the Board of Supervisors.

And by all accounts, the Border Crimes Unit is proving to be a success.

In December, a grant from the state allowed the unit to nearly double its number of officers, and officials say the number of violent border crimes in the region has decreased since they came on the scene less than a year ago.

As Petropolous says, “We're dedicated, we’re making progress.”