Illegal Migration Professionalized

Sixty-one suspected illegal migrants were detained when US Border Patrol officers stopped this truck east of San Diego in May, 2008. Photograph by US Border Patrol, distributed by the Associated Press.

The governors of four US and six Mexican states reached agreement on several issues at a conference held August 13-16 in Hollywood. Joint declarations dealt with reducing wait times for those crossing the border, reducing cross-border gun smuggling and human trafficking, and improving cross-border cooperation in disaster response.

The governors' focus on human trafficking highlights an under-reported aspect of the US-Mexican border control challenge. Over a recent eight month period in Texas alone more than 400 tractor trailers were intercepted carrying undocumented migrants into the United States. In June Governor Rick Perry of Texas initiated a program called "Texas Hold 'Em" to crack down on truckers involved in organized trafficking rings.

According to a June 2008 report by the US Department of State, Mexico is among the top three nations of origin for human trafficking. "Organized criminal networks traffic women and girls from Mexico into the United States for commercial sexual exploitation. Mexican men and boys are trafficked from southern to northern Mexico for forced labor. Central Americans, especially Guatemalans, have been subjected to agricultural servitude and labor exploitation in southern Mexico. Mexican men, women, and boys are trafficked into the United States for forced labor, particularly in agriculture."

Mexican drug cartels are deeply involved in the cross-border transportation of persons. In addition to what is essentially a modern slave trade, drug cartels and other illicit organizations operate fee-based systems for illegally transporting groups of people across the US-Mexican border. Traditionally called coyotes the fee-for-service ranges from guiding migrants across the border to more expensive packages that deliver the migrant to a particular US destination.

According the the Mexican Migration Project the average cost of coyote services has steadily increased as border security has tightened. The typical fee has recently been estimated at $1500 per person or more. The increased fees and more sophisticated requirements have resulted in a professionalization of the coyote industry and increasing domination by the drug cartels.

As the border state governors emphasized, effectively targeting the drug cartels could produce a policy trifecta: reducing drug smuggling, human trafficking, and organized violence in both the United States and Mexico. But recent efforts to do exactly that demonstrate the ability of the cartels to resist and persist. (See Drug Related Violence Shakes Mexico)