Tag Archives: human smugglers

Most of 54 dead in Mexico truck crash were Guatemalans, Mexico says

By Jacob Garcia

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Most of the victims of Thursday’s truck crash in southern Mexico that killed at least 54 people and injured dozens more were Guatemalan migrants, authorities said on Friday.

People spilled from the truck carrying an estimated 166 people after it flipped over on a curve outside the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in the state of Chiapas, causing one of the worst death tolls of migrants in Mexico in the past decade.

The Mexican Attorney General’s office said it would investigate the incident, which state officials in Chiapas said had claimed the lives of 54 people and injured 58 others.

Authorities identified 95 Guatemalans among the people caught up in the accident, as well as three people from the Dominican Republic, a Honduran, a Mexican and an Ecuadorean.

Lists of people being treated in hospital published on social media showed dozens of Guatemalan migrants among the survivors. Local residents said other people fled the scene, apparently to evade arrest after the truck rolled over.

An unidentified Guatemalan man interviewed at the scene said when the trunk driver tried to negotiate the bend, the weight of people inside caused the vehicle flip over.

“The trailer couldn’t handle the weight of people,” he said.

Thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America travel through Mexico each month to reach the U.S. border. They often cram inside large trucks organized by smugglers in extremely dangerous conditions.

National and international leaders expressed consternation at the death toll, and urged migrants not to try their luck in making the journey north to the United States.

“Human smugglers disregard human life for their own profit. Please don’t risk your lives to migrate irregularly,” Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico said on Twitter.

Many migrants fall prey to criminal gangs en route. In January, 19 people, mostly migrants, were massacred with suspected police involvement in northern Mexico.

Record numbers of people have been arrested on the U.S.-Mexico border this year as migrants seek to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s pledge to pursue more humane immigration policies than his hardline predecessor, Donald Trump.

Mexican authorities in Chiapas have attempted to persuade migrants to not form caravans to walk thousands of miles to the U.S. border, and have begun transporting people from the southern city of Tapachula to other regions of the country.

(Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Jose Torres; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Alison Williams)

U.S to target migrant smugglers as Biden struggles with border crossings

By Mimi Dwyer

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The United States is launching an operation to identify and target human smugglers, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday, as the Biden administration struggles with record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that Operation Sentinel would seek to block smugglers’ ability to engage in “travel, trade, and finance” in the United States.

The operation will aim to identify smugglers and target their activities by revoking travel documents, suspending trade entities, and freezing financial assets, DHS said.

DHS said smugglers “pose significant dangers to migrants,” noting that border patrol agents had found the bodies of 250 migrants who died en route to the United States in fiscal year 2020.

Migrants from Central America and elsewhere often use smugglers to travel to the border and are prone to extortion, kidnapping and other violence.

Roughly 168,000 people were picked up by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, the highest monthly tally since March 2001.

(Reporting by Mimi Dwyer in Los Angeles, editing by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O’Brien)

Migrant smugglers see boost from U.S. pandemic border policy

By Laura Gottesdiener and Sarah Kinosian

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – These days, Martin Salgado’s migrant shelter in the city of San Luis Rio Colorado on Mexico’s border with the United States feels more like an hourly hotel. His guests, many of them from Central America, often don’t even bother to spend the night.

Salgado said he has never seen people cycle through as repeatedly as he has in recent months, after the United States began expelling almost all migrants caught on the Mexican border rather than returning them to their homelands. Now, human smugglers often attempt to get migrants back across the border the very same day they are deported, he said.

Previously, Central American migrants apprehended at the border would be processed in the U.S. immigration system and would often be held for weeks, if not months, before being deported back to their home country.

“We never saw this before,” said Salgado, who runs the shelter near Arizona’s western limits founded by his mother in the 1990’s. Some Central Americans who arrive at the shelter after being deported “eat, bathe, and suddenly they disappear.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in March announced that it would begin to quickly expel nearly all migrants caught at the border under the authority of an existing federal public health act, known as Title 42, saying the move was necessary to prevent coronavirus spreading into the United States.

But the order appears to be having unintended effects.

It’s led to an increase in repeated border crossing attempts, data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows. And it’s benefiting the illegal networks that move people from Central America to the United States, according to interviews with more than a dozen migration experts, shelter directors, immigrant advocates and human smugglers.

That is because U.S. authorities are depositing the migrants on the border, rather than returning them home, which allows smugglers to eliminate some of the costs of repeat border crossings, said three smugglers working with transnational networks. The price migrants pay smugglers, which can be $7,000, or double that, often includes two or three attempted border crossings to offset the risks of being intercepted by Mexican or U.S. authorities, according to the three smugglers, as well as migration experts.

Not all migrants travel with smugglers, but even those braving the dangerous journey alone or in small groups often turn to coyotes at the border for the final stretch of the journey. Since they too are now being returned at the Mexican border when caught they now often pay for a second or third try, in another boon for the smuggling networks, said migrant experts and a guide tied to a smuggling network in the Sonora region.

U.S. border officials say the program, which has resulted in migrants being returned in an average of less than two hours, is crucial for protecting U.S. agents, health care workers and the general public from COVID-19 by avoiding the potential spread of coronavirus if migrants were apprehended, processed, and then sent to U.S. detention centers, as per previous policy.

“It would take just a small number of individuals with COVID-19 to infect a large number of detainees and CBP personnel and potentially overwhelm local healthcare systems along the border,” the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement.

Joe Biden clinched the U.S. presidency following the Nov. 3 election, though Trump has not acknowledged defeat and has launched an array of lawsuits to press claims of election fraud for which he has produced no evidence. The president elect has not laid out specific plans about the Title 42 program. A senior advisor to the Biden campaign in August told Reuters that Biden would look to public health officials for guidance on pandemic-related border closures.

“MAKING MORE MONEY”

Seeking safe passage on the perilous trek north, migrants often pay thousands of dollars to smugglers – known as ‘coyotes’ – linked to gangs that control territory in Mexico.

The three men who identified themselves as smugglers from different transnational networks told Reuters they save about $1,000 or more each time U.S. Border Patrol expels one of their Central American clients at the Mexican border rather than returning them back by plane to their home countries.

“It’s great for us,” said Antonio, a Salvadoran smuggler who is part of a network that he said charges migrants $14,000 a head for three runs at getting from Central America to the United States.

Antonio, like the others involved in the smuggling trade that Reuters interviewed, declined to give his last name.

He said his network spends at least $800 per migrant paying off drug cartels for the right to transit through their turf, then there are additional costs such as food, shelter, transportation, and occasional bribes to Mexican authorities.

In the past, when Central American migrants were caught by U.S. Border Patrol and sent home, his network would have to pick up that tab again on migrants’ second or third attempts.

Mexico’s immigration agency in August vowed to “eradicate the collusion between public servants and human smugglers” as it ousted hundreds of officials for work-related offenses.

Pablo, a Guatemalan who ferries migrants across Guatemala’s border into Mexico, estimated that the network he works for saves at least $1,300 for every Central American who is returned at the U.S. border rather than sent back to their homeland.

“We’re making more money because we don’t have to pay the mafia again in Mexico,” he said. “So, there’s an advantage.”

REPEATED ATTEMPTS

Migration numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels, following steep declines this spring after Central American countries slammed their borders shut in an effort to halt the spread of coronavirus. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said it conducted nearly 55,000 expulsions and apprehensions of migrants at the southwest border in September. That is more than triple the figure for April and is slightly higher than the 40,507 a year earlier, according to CBP data.

And, apprehensions and expulsions continued to climb in October, said a U.S. official with knowledge of the numbers.

Still, migration numbers for the 12-month period ended in September were down from the previous year. The Title 42 order does not change deportation policy for Mexicans, who made up about two thirds of people expelled by the United States during August and September, according to the CBP. Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans account for the next three largest groups.

Meanwhile, the number of repeated attempts has sharply increased, indicating that fewer people are migrating than last year but more of those who are trying to cross the border multiple times.

Between April and September, the proportion of people caught crossing the border more than once surged to 37%, up from 7% for the 12-month period ended in September 2019, according to the CBP.

The president of the Border Patrol union in Laredo Texas, border agent Hector Garza, said the Title 42 order was helping limit the exposure of the border workforce to COVID-19 and avoid overwhelming local hospitals in communities in Texas, which are already experiencing a surge of coronavirus cases.

“But with any benefit there is a downside, and in this case, we’re seeing people coming back and forth, trying to cross multiple times within a 24-hour period,” he told Reuters.

In the border city of Ciudad Juarez on Oct. 31, across from the Texas city of El Paso, Cuban Alexander Garcia stood by the port of entry to the United States. Garcia, who identified himself as a doctor, said he had just been deported after his sixth attempt at crossing the border without authorization.

“They’re returning us in less than three hours!” exclaimed García. “We cross, and they just grab us and push us back into Juarez.”

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, during a news conference last month, said the pandemic had reduced the ability and willingness of authorities to prosecute because detaining people potentially involved additional risk of spreading COVID-19 in the United States.

“IT MOTIVATES YOU”

About 125 miles east of Salgado’s shelter, Jesus, a guide linked to a local smuggling network, and his Guatemalan girlfriend, Yolanda, have been biding their time in a chilly trailer serving as a migrant stash house along the Mexican border.

They said nearby clashes between rival gangs have delayed Yolanda’s departure across the Sonoran desert into the United States.

But Jesus said he’s heartened by the new U.S. policy – and so are the town’s smugglers that he’s worked for over the years.

“It’s better because if people get caught, they come right back,” he said. “So it’s like, we’re still in business.”

Yolanda was also encouraged when, upon reaching the border, she found out that if she was caught, she would only be sent to Mexico, rather than likely being deported back home.

“It motivates you,” she said, explaining that she left Guatemala after she was forced to close her clothing shop when pandemic restrictions crippled the economy.

She racked up debts, fell behind on her mortgage, and lost her home, she said, joining a small but growing number of Central Americans fleeing the economic crisis triggered by pandemic-related restrictions across the region.

While Title 42 has encouraged some people to risk the crossing after being turned back, some human rights organizations say it erodes migrants’ rights because they are being rapidly returned to Mexico before having an opportunity to explain why they fled their countries or to present a case for why they would qualify for asylum under U.S. law.

CBP said in a statement the agency “remains committed to our obligations to provide safe haven to those who claim persecution.”

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Monterrey, Sarah Kinosian in Caracas, and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez; Editing by Dave Graham, Frank Jack Daniel and Cassell Bryan-Low)

Migrants ‘knock at front door’ for asylum after Trump crackdown

A Mexican migrant child arranges freshly-washed clothing at the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, Mexico June 22, 2018. Picture taken June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

By Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA/REYNOSA, Mexico (Reuters) – More Mexicans and Central Americans are lining up to make asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border as word spreads of a U.S. crackdown on families crossing illegally and the threat of brutal gangs lying in wait if they go it alone.

Officials at shelters in border cities as well as migrants from Mexico and Central America told Reuters there was a rising number of people waiting, often for weeks, to make asylum pleas to immigration authorities at official border crossings.

Many of the dozens of migrants interviewed by Reuters said they decided to present an official asylum request after hearing about parents being separated from children when crossing the U.S. border illegally, and about friends making successful requests.

Following an outcry at home and abroad over his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week to end the family separations. But over 2,000 children are yet to be reunited with their parents.

The migrants, many with children in tow, told harrowing tales of kidnapping, extortion and murder by gangs in Mexico and Central America. That threat was enough to inspire the perilous journey in hope of receiving asylum in the United States.

“They don’t go through the mountains or deserts anymore, they go to the front door,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, a migration expert at San Diego State University.

But their chances of asylum may be diminishing.

On June 11, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned a grant of asylum to a Salvadoran domestic abuse victim, potentially excluding immigrants seeking refuge from sexual, gang and other forms of violence in their homelands.

Those threats were the basis of a “credible fear” argument that could prevent them from being returned.

That risk has yet to deter migrants.

WAITING GAME

Shelters run by charities in Reynosa, Tijuana and Nogales – Mexican cities separated by hundreds of miles along the border – all reported an uptick in migrant asylum seekers.

Marla Conrad, a coordinator at the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, said that so far this month, she had seen about an extra 100 people lining up for asylum compared with May.

At the border in Tijuana, 26-year-old Jose Cortes from El Salvador, traveling with his 5-year-old daughter, said the waiting list to request asylum was now 1,150 people long. When he arrived two weeks ago, it had 1,000 names on it.

Migrants manage the waiting list, a task currently with Cortes. When his turn comes to cross into the United States for an asylum interview, he will pass the list to another migrant.

It is growing even as 30 to 60 people are called up daily to plead their cases with U.S. border agents.

Mexican Jacqueline Moreno, 43, said that as recently as December, her daughter managed to cross and successfully request asylum on the same day. Now, fleeing violence in her home state of Michoacan with her son, 13, Moreno said she had been waiting three weeks.

MANY MORE PEOPLE

Some migrants followed tips from their hometowns about how to seek asylum. Others paid thousands of dollars to people smugglers, or “coyotes,” who assured them a case could be made.

Many stay near the border in spartan shelters, with rows of brightly colored tents, or in dingy hotels often charging prices they struggle to pay.

Patricia Flores and her 7-year-old son are among thousands of Central Americans waiting at the border.

After witnessing a gangland killing in their neighborhood, Flores decided to pay $4,000 to a human smuggler who told her she could just get to the border and ask for asylum.

Flores has been desperately trying to get a meeting at the border but said she had been turned away by Mexican officials.

Her son described how he saw his neighbor shot in the head back in El Salvador.

“My mom said it’s our secret but if I tell anyone, I am going to go to heaven. I don’t want to,” he said, adding he was not afraid. Pointing to his green T-shirt with a cartoon on it, he said that was his “bulletproof jacket.”

Adelia Contini, from Brazil, has run a church-funded shelter for women and children in Tijuana for nine years. She too has noticed a increase in asylum seekers.

“Since 2013, we started seeing more people asking for asylum, but not as much as now,” she said. “Since January, there are many more people, more than last year.”

‘WAITING TO KILL US’

Encouraged by relatives and friends in the United States, Honduran Lorena Mejia has been waiting for two weeks in a shelter in Reynosa near the banks of the Rio Grande with her husband and four children to apply for asylum.

Returning home did not bear thinking about, Mejia said, explaining that she and her family had been threatened because they witnessed a massacre in Honduras a few years ago.

“We can’t go back there. They’re waiting to kill us,” the 31-year-old said, adding that two other witnesses had already been murdered. “We have to get in.”

Sharon Melissa Analco, 23, arrived in Tijuana on Friday with her 5-year-old daughter, fleeing kidnappers terrorizing her family in Acapulco in the violent Mexican state of Guerrero.

Analco said she had no money to pay for her stay, having expected to be able to get right into the United States. But a U.S. official turned her away at the crossing, telling her she would have to put her name on a list and wait her turn.

“I can’t wait out there,” she recalled telling the official, weeping on the plaza next to the border. “I’m in danger.”

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Michael O’Boyle and Anthony Esposito; Editing by Dave Graham, Daniel Flynn and Peter Cooney)