Experts say U.S. border policies are good for smugglers looking to prey on desperation
Immigration experts are faulting the U.S. government for failing to create safe, legal channels for fleeing migrants after the deaths of 51 people who had been in the back of an overheated tractor-trailer in southwest San Antonio on Monday night.
The incident is believed to be the deadliest human-smuggling incident on U.S. soil.
“You cannot enforce your way out of these migration pressures,” said former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner Doris Meissner. She said the U.S. is overdue for new immigration laws “so that there are ways for people to come to the country legally that make sense for our economy and circumstances.”
She said today’s immigration laws do not address why people are often coming to the border: terrible country conditions combined with job opportunities and family ties to the United States.
“Border restrictions or greater law enforcement generates the incentives of the creation of networks of smugglers because migrants cannot do it by themselves,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a national expert in smuggling networks along the Southwest border.
Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University, has studied a number of different smuggling routes, including the common pathway from Nuevo Laredo to Laredo — through one of the busiest ports in the United States.
After crossing into Laredo, migrants are generally driven in tractor-trailers up I-35 to San Antonio. Historically, the area is known to be a major smuggling route for Mexicans and Central Americans, relying largely on large semis and tractor-trailers to bypass immigration
inspection and bring people to San Antonio.
This leg of the journey typically costs roughly $6,000 per person, according to Correa-Cabrera, making it a lucrative business for international smuggling rings.
"Because of the fact that these networks have become more savvy and more sophisticated. can bring people from their own continent to the United States, U.S.-bound migrations have incorporated more countries,” she said. “So, now, we are talking about a global phenomenon, not just a phenomenon from Central America."
Human smuggling is a multibillion dollar industry worldwide. A 2018 report by the United Nations estimated that smugglers cashed in $5.5 billion — 7 billion for smuggling 2.5 million migrants around the world.
The report added that the smuggling industry is fueled by demand — poor in-country conditions and then a need to overcome logistical obstacles to getting to safety.
“Without sufficient pathways to safety, vulnerable and desperate people will continue to be preyed upon by smugglers or forced to resort to desperate measures to cross borders. Among those taking these journeys are asylum seekers and refugees fleeing violence, persecution and human rights abuses, as well as migrants, victims of trafficking and others,” said Matthew Reynolds, UNHCR Representative to the United States and the Caribbean.
Reynolds said that to prevent the loss of life, “what is needed are safer alternatives to these dangerous irregular movements.”
Asylum seekers and economic migrants are facing steep obstacles to entering the U.S. through official channels, especially those from Central America and Mexico.
The asylum system has essentially been closed off to adult Central Americans and Mexicans under the Trump-era border policy Title 42, which allows immigration officials to handily remove asylum seekers and other migrants at the border, denying them access to the legal asylum process. The Biden administration tried to lift the policy in late May, but was temporarily stopped by a federal judge, after Texas and other GOP-led states sued.
The policy disproportionately impacts nationalities from the Northern Triangle and Mexico — countries of origins reflected in the recent body count.
In fiscal year 2022, nearly 90 percent of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans encountered at the border were expelled. Those statistics exclude unaccompanied minors, who under the Biden administration are allowed into the U.S. for humanitarian reasons.
Twenty-two Mexicans, seven Guatemalans and two Hondurans were among the dead migrants found in the tractor-trailer in San Antonio, according to Mexican foreign secretary Marcelo Ebrard.
Despite the strict border policies in place, 2022 is on track to exceed 2 million border arrests, topping new records, by the end of the fiscal year in September, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Though a migrant casualty event of this scale is historic within the United States, similar events have occurred around the world and in Texas. The deadliest human smuggling event on U.S. soil before Monday’s San Antonio deaths came on May 13, 2003, when 19 migrants died after riding in the rear compartment of an 18-wheeler in South Texas.
In recent years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported a number of smuggling busts relating to the transportation of dozens of migrants. In May, two men were indicted for smuggling dozens of migrants through a Laredo checkpoint through tractortrailers.
Central Americans named poor wages and unemployment as well as natural disasters and violence, as triggers of migration to the U.S. in a 2021 survey by the Migration Policy Institute. The report recommended that investments in addressing unemployment and climate change, could help mitigate migration to the United States.
As counterintuitive as it is, slamming the door on asylum seekers and other migrants increases desperation and fuels an underground system that lines the pockets of international criminal organizations.