Several cartels in Mexico have been smuggling migrants into the United States via costly underground tunnel routes, some of which are operated with the help of government officials. All the while, charter transportation companies have been charging migrants from India and Africa even more to illegally immigrate to the U.S.
In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the dark and narrow tunnel filled with toxic gases, insects, rattlesnakes and rodents that reaches El Paso, Texas, is one of the most sought after routes for customers of the VIP package who can afford it.
According to interviews with top Mexican state authorities, federal law enforcement officials from both sides of the border, and migrants waiting to cross encampments along the Rio Grande, the tunnel route costs at least $6,000, USA Today reported. Ricardo, a migrant smuggler, said he has charged up to $15,000. A joint investigation by Mexican and U.S. authorities found that one Juárez-based cartel, La Linea, has been smuggling at least 1,000 migrants through the tunnels every month.
Migrant smuggling in this VIP route has picked up as U.S. security along the border with Mexico has increased and legal migration paths have diminished; this has allowed Mexican criminal organizations to profit from the heightened demand. It was also recently discovered that some U.S. gun sellers are behind cartel violence.
“Criminals have shifted from their primary business, which was drug trafficking,” said Arturo Velasco, head of the anti-kidnapping unit at the Chihuahua attorney general’s office. “Now 60 to 70% of their focus is migrant smuggling.”
Velasco reported that Mexican National Guard and immigration authorities turn migrants over to cartels and sell migration permits that allow people to legally transit through the country. Additionally, local police sometimes abduct and hold migrants for profit before smuggling them.
Charter transportation companies are also smuggling through Central America. One of these has been likely identified as Legend Airlines and they’re taking Indian and African migrants into the U.S. at extremely high prices through two new illegal routes.
“You have certain charter transportation companies charging extortion-level prices to prey on and profit from vulnerable migrants and facilitating irregular migration to the United States,” Eric Jacobstein, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere, told Reuters. One route starts in West Africa, with migrants paying up to $10,000 for multi-stop commercial flights to Nicaragua, before continuing by land to the U.S.. The second, serving migrants from India, offers charter flights to Central America and overland transfers to the U.S. border for between 6 million ($72,000) and 8 million rupees ($96,000) per person.
These numerous examples of illegal and considerably pricey human smuggling operations point to the widespread scope of these profitable illegal outfits.
