by Timothy W. Maier and Sean Paige

About the authors: Timothy W. Maier and Sean Paige write for Insight magazine.

Undercover agents in Texas smashed a family-led smuggling ring on July 13, 1999 that for 15 years specialized in sneaking thousands of illegal aliens past Border Patrol checkpoints in the Rio Grande Valley—sometimes disguising them as fans caravaning to high-school football championships.

On July 26, 1999, the U.S. Coast Guard called off the search for 40 Haitians missing when two smuggling boats went to the sharks between Florida and the Bahamas, resulting in “the most deaths in a smuggling case that I can remember,” according to one Coast Guard officer.

On July 27, 1999, prosecutors in Florida won prison terms for six men convicted of running a sex-slavery ring in which Mexican...