A re-post of an article by Mexican newspaper “Excelsior” provides some details about the current cost for illegals to cross the border, estimating that the cartels make as much as a million dollars for every truckload of illegals that they smuggle.
Enrique Morones is quoted in the article, trying to justify illegal immigration. Morones is a Mexican nationalist and a dual citizen who says he is a Mexican, who just happened to be born in the US. A lot of what he does encourages illegal immigration and asylum fraud and helps the cartels in that way.
RELATED POST: How Much Do Coyotes Charge To Cross The US Border?
As detailed in this article illegal immigration takes many billions of dollars of capital out of poor neighborhoods in Latin America that could be used in businesses to employ people and gives it to the cartels to use in their smuggling activities or to invest it elsewhere.
Cartels Make Up To Million Dollars Per Trailer Smuggling “Migrants”
USA.- The transfer of migrants in trailers to the United States is a practice that has been going on for decades, but the risks, costs and hierarchies have changed.
A migrant who traveled by trailer, but refused to give his name, said that the transfer by that means costs between four and 5 thousand dollars (between 80 thousand 492 and 100 thousand 615 pesos).
However, everything depends on where the transfer begins, whether from Central America, southern Mexico or near the border, says Abigail, the cousin of a human trafficker, or smuggler, who requested anonymity.
‘It also depends on what route they want and if it’s going to be, for example, just crossing the Rio Grande,’ she says. Before, the coyotes were the ones who controlled the business, but with the advance of drug trafficking, that has also changed. According to records from authorities on both sides of the border, the drug cartels most involved in the human trafficking business are the remaining remnants of Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel.
“Those guys are in everything, they don’t miss one thing and there is no other way than to pay them what they ask for or give them a percentage. Sometimes they put their men as smugglers, but here it is their law and there is no way to do it. The government —federal and state— is pure bullshit, they are not good for mothers,” describes Abigail.
According to the Current Population Survey, carried out by the United States Census Bureau, in 1992 a crossing from Mexico to the neighboring country, by trailer, crossing the Rio Grande or by other means, cost an average of 300 dollars (6 thousand 37 pesos, at today’s exchange rate). Twenty years later, in 2012, the same type of crossing cost between 2,000 and 3,000 dollars (between 40,246 and 60,369 pesos). Today, depending on the type of crossing, it costs between 5,000 and 15,000 dollars (up to 301,846 pesos).
Seen this way, the trailer where 53 migrants died, 27 of them Mexicans, was a business of around one million dollars (20 million 130 thousand pesos).
Many factors influence the price change, from the growing difficulty for migrants to cross, the strengthening of border security in the United States, to those who control the illicit business of human smuggling.
According to the migrant who traveled by trailer, the price also varies depending on the nationality of the person who is going to be transferred. A Mexican is charged less, for example, than a Central American.
Despite the high cost, migrants are willing to make any sacrifice, to go into debt for decades, in order to achieve the American dream. Because if before with 15 thousand dollars they could start a business in their countries of origin, today they cannot do it. “Whatever you put in, now you have to pay for a flat and pay for security and even so, be on the lookout so that you or one of your family is not kidnapped or robbed. Today it is more business to risk it to get to the gabacho”, Lidia and Jorge, a married couple from El Salvador, tell this newspaper. [Note: “gebacho” literally meaning “dude” is a racial slur used for for white Americans.]
Neither risks nor tragic cases like Monday’s will stop those who want to reach the United States.
“These people – the migrants – are desperate. It is very easy to say ‘don’t cross, hold on’, but if they don’t cross they are going to die of hunger or violence,” laments Enrique Morones, director of Gente Unida and founder emeritus of Angeles de la Frontera. He acknowledges that the way migrants traveling in trailers are treated is getting worse.
‘They treat them worse than animals, they don’t take precautions.’ Putting steak seasoning on them to disguise their smell is new, but he’s not surprised. Traffickers will do anything, she says, to ‘seal the deal.’ On top of everything, “now it is much more expensive to hire a crossing like this, and nothing is safe”.
But in their places of origin their lives are also at risk, she explains. At least by traveling they hope to achieve a better quality of life.
Taken from Excelsior.
