The current flow of undocumented immigrants to the United States via Mexico exposes not only a humanitarian drama but also the migrant trade that moves billions of dollars and treats people as commodities.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal entries are recorded every year through the 3,200 km border, generating $ 4.2 billion annually for these human traffickers known as ‘coyotes’ or ‘polleros’, according to a 2018 UN report. the agency made profits at $ 6.6 billion.
Like other forms of organized crime, it is controlled by drug traffickers, although the first link may be a neighbor of the migrants, mostly Central Americans.
Plagued by poverty, Honduran Juan Macías (name changed) paid $ 7,000 in March to one of those networks he raised with family loans.
“They work through organizations, they call them guides, and then the cartels are on the border,” the 35-year-old man told AFP at a shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where he was expelled from the United States.
Now he is expecting some immigration advantage from the US President, Joe Biden, or is trying to cross over with his means.
Macías says he had to deal with eight “polleros” during his trip with about thirty migrants.
“You identified yourself with the code when you arrived at the place: ‘I am so-and-so and this is the code’ (…) They don’t say anything, just ‘follow me’,” he says.
– Criminal companies –
Traffic did not stop, even with former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, and experienced a resurgence with Biden, who offered to regularize 11 million undocumented immigrants and end the separation of families.
The traffickers “found a crossroads in Biden’s speech to attract more people,” said Óscar Hernández, a researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico.
But the president just postponed his plan to increase the quota of admitted refugees and for now kept the historically low limit of 15,000 (3,000 for Latin America), sparking criticism from the Democrats.
The number of undocumented arrests in the United States rose 71% in March to 172,300, while the number of unaccompanied minors doubled to nearly 19,000.
After long and dangerous journeys, these people arrived on foot, in truck boxes or by train.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had denounced that criminals “suggest migrants are bringing children,” announced this Sunday that he will propose to Biden a plan to gradually regularize these people.
Traffic was originally controlled by Mexicans associated with a program that allowed them to work in the United States between 1942 and 1964.
Over the years they were replaced by criminal companies capable of corrupting the authorities and employed from “enganchadores,” those who help cross the border between Mexico and Guatemala, to those who drag a ladder to get to the fence. to pass through the United States.
In 2020, Mexico researched a range of networks. The migrants also include Cubans, Haitians, Africans, Chinese and Indians, according to the UN.
And despite the fact that security was strengthened, the smugglers would use different routes than the traditional ones.
– Marked as a commodity –
During the winding journey, the migrants become ‘merchandise’, the UN says, to the point of being marked with bracelets with their names and inscriptions such as ‘deliveries’ or ‘arrivals’.
A 24-year-old Honduran woman and her one-year-old daughter were fastened with purple bracelets, which they had to throw away before handing over to US officials.
“They put them on you before you get to the river, and after you passed you have to take it off,” says the woman, who was sent away with 156 other mothers and their children on April 12, at a shelter in Ciudad. Juárez. It doesn’t mean his name.
Drug traffickers broke into migrant smuggling in 2009, amid Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s military anti-drug offensive (2006-2012), which has since killed around 300,000 people.
“It is a business and as such it operates on the basis of supply and demand. (…) When the state is concerned about the fight against drugs, the drug traffickers will seek diversification,” explains Javier Urbano of the Ibero-American University. from.
In addition, this crime poses fewer risks. In Mexico in 2020, five men were sentenced to six years in prison for transporting 785 migrants in trucks.
Some drug traffickers are also involved in stealing, extorting or forcing migrants to work for them. “That’s why we know extreme cases of murders,” adds Urbano.
In 2010, 72 migrants were massacred in San Fernando (Tamaulipas, East) for allegedly refusing to serve Los Zetas, while 16 Guatemalans and three Mexicans were murdered in January.