El Paso, Texas — Wearing baggy blue jeans and hoodies and looking scruffy and unkempt, the state’s elite undercover squad could easily be mistaken for the bedraggled smugglers they are trying to apprehend, or the migrants pouring over the southern border from Mexico.
These specially trained members of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety have perhaps the most dangerous job on the border, acting as double agents and facing certain death if their cover is blown.
