$ 6.6 billion in annual revenue

Current avalanche of undocumented migrants to the United States via Mexico exposes not only a humanitarian drama, but also the smuggling of migrants which moves billions of dollars and in which people are treated as commodities.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of illegal entries are recorded across the 3,200 km border, according to the United Nations, which amounted to $ 6.6 billion the annual profits of these human traffickers called “coyotes” or “polleros”.

Like other forms of organized crime, this one is usually controlled by drug traffickers, although the first link may be a neighbor of migrants, mainly Central Americans.

Harassed by poverty, Honduran Juan Macías (name changed) paid for one of these networks in March $ 7,000 he raised through family loans.

“They work through organizations, they call them guides; and then the cartels are at the border, ”the 35-year-old man told AFP at a shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where he was deported from the United States.

Now in debt, he awaits immigration benefits from US President Joe Biden or tries to cross by his means.

Macías says that treaty of eight “polleros” during the trip in which around thirty migrants took part.

“One identified with the code when he arrived there: ‘I am so-and-so this is the code‘(…) They don’t say anything, just’ follow me ‘, ”he said.

“Zero tolerance”

The traffic has not stopped even with former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, and has seen a rebound since the arrival of Biden, who offered regularize 11 million undocumented migrants and put an end to the separation of families.

The traffickers “found a turning point in Biden’s speech to start attracting more people, ”says Óscar Hernández, researcher at Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico.

But the president has just delayed his plan to increase the quota of admitted refugees and has maintained it for the moment. Trump’s historically low limit of 15,000 (3,000 for Latin America), arousing criticism from Democrats.

Arrests of undocumented people in the United States climbed 71% in March, reaching 172,300, while the number of unaccompanied minors doubled to almost 19,000.

These people arrived after a long and dangerous time Crossings on foot, in truck boxes or by train.

The traffic was originally controlled by Mexicans linked to a program that allowed them to work in the United States between 1942 and 1964.

Over the years, they have been replaced by criminal companies capable of corrupting the authorities and that they employ “whores”, those who help to cross the border between Mexico and Guatemala, even those who carry a ladder to pass the fence in the United States.

In 2020, Mexico was investigating about twenty networks. Although most are from Central America, there are also Cuban, African, Chinese and Indian migrants, according to the UN.

Other routes

And although security has been tightened, smugglers use roads different from traditional.

In the tortuous journey, the migrants “become commodities”, says the UN, to the point of being marked with bracelets bearing their names and inscriptions. as “deliveries” or “arrivals”.

A 24-year-old Honduran woman and her one-year-old daughter were given purple bracelets, which they had to throw away before going to the US border patrol.

A purple and white bracelet identify who They leave for a “special trip”, even if during their attempt to cross towards the United States, all, whatever their bracelet, remained hidden in a warehouse in Reynosa, tells the woman, expelled on April 12 with 156 other mothers and their children.

“They put them on you before you reached the river, and after you passed, you have to take it off», He adds – reserving his name – in a hostel in Ciudad Juárez.

Narcos broke into migrant smuggling in 2009, amid the military anti-drug offensive deployed by Mexican President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), which has since killed nearly 300,000.

“It is a business and, as such, it operates by supply and demand (…) If the state puts pressure on the war on drugs, drug traffickers will seek to diversify”, explains Javier Urbano, from the Ibero-American University.

In addition, this crime carries less risk. In 2020, five men were sentenced to six years in prison in Mexico for the transport of 785 migrants in trucks.

Some drug traffickers have also engaged in stealing, extorting or forcing migrants to work for them. “This is why we know of extreme cases of murder,” Urbano adds.

In 2010, 72 migrants were massacred in San Fernando (Tamaulipas, est) for allegedly refusing to serve Los Zetas, while 16 Guatemalans and three Mexicans were killed last January.

Source: AFP

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