El Paso, Texas – A new study shows that profit margins for “coyote” people-smugglers operating along the U.S.-Mexico border increase in direct correlation with the escalation of interdiction efforts on the north side of the line.
The report from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Northern Border College), based in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, says that in the past two years traffickers of undocumented aliens pulled in revenues of more than $100 million.
It also says that in 2005, about 60 percent of undocumented immigrants relied on a “coyote” to try making it into the United States.
Rodolfo Rubio Salas, chief researcher at Colegio de la Frontera Norte, said that the study reveals that the demand for the services of people-smugglers continues to increase; in 1993 some 16 percent of immigrants availed themselves of “coyotes,” while by 2004 the percentage had risen to 45 percent.
He added that the study – carried out between 1993 and 2005 – found that rates charged by traffickers depend on the place where they are taking the immigrant – they will always charge more the farther north from the border the customer wants to go.
According to a Mexican Consulate spokesperson in El Paso, Socorro Cordova, undocumented immigrants who have been stopped by the Border Patrol say they have paid $2,000 just for crossing the border.
Those who come from the interior of Mexico and are taken to cities like Houston will pay up to $5,000, Cordova said.
“Coyotes” can also become kidnappers, Cordova added, recalling a Mexican family that got a call from a smuggler who asked for $2,000 to release an immigrant that he had helped get into the United States illegally.
Some undocumented aliens from Central America have paid up to $8,000 to enter the United States, according to Simon Chandelier, a volunteer worker at a shelter for migrants.
In the opinion of Fernando Garcia, El Paso coordinator for a border-area network of immigrants rights activists, the increase in border security has pushed up the price of traffickers’ services.
“They have put the immigrant in the hands of the ‘coyotes,'” Garcia said, adding that the chances of an undocumented immigrant making the crossing successfully are almost nil without the help of a people-smuggler.
The study found that would-be immigrants who are apprehended and repatriated and later make another attempt to enter the United States tend to do it alone because they have learned where to go and how to do it, while the first-time immigrant usually counts on a “coyote” for help.
Another slant turned up by the study is that the more complicated the crossing, the more creative the trafficker has to be to avoid detection by the Border Patrol, and consequently the higher the fees he will charge his client.
It said that “coyotes'” economic power is so great that they now contract truckdrivers in cities like El Paso to take immigrants to more central areas of the country.
