The drivers are recruited on social media, law-enforcement officials say.
Pulling over to the side of the road, the Val Verde County deputy pointed out piles and piles of clothes and trash in the brush just off the road. He explained that migrants who have sneaked across the border — specifically those who did not file for asylum — quickly change their clothes, ditch their packs, and jump into getaway vehicles driven by smugglers.
Earlier today, I published a piece on the devastating impacts of illegal immigration on south Texas communities and migrants alike. In the piece, I mentioned that under this administration, many illegal immigrants passing through private ranchland are, more and more, allowed to walk free as Border Patrol remains bogged down with the skyrocketing number of asylum claims.
Where do the migrants who just walk off the ranches go? That’s one of the most disturbing pieces of this story: It’s not clear.
Smuggled individuals are illegal immigrants who either did not ask or qualify for asylum at the border. Some have criminal records barring them from asylum. As I wrote:
With Title 42 — a pandemic-era measure that’s allowed the government to turn back some asylum-seekers — in place, Border Patrol mostly turns Mexican and Northern Triangle nationals back into Mexico. They also turn away migrants with criminal records. Though enforcement varies, others, including most family units, can apply for asylum, overwhelming the system. According to the New York Times, the criteria for being “permitted to stay” despite Title 42 “has varied day by day or even hour by hour, as well as from one border crossing to the next.” In March alone, border agents processed migrants 221,303 times, exceeding the previous record of 213,593 under Biden last summer. . . . With Border Patrol dealing with mounting asylum claims, though, much of the border remains unattended. “The agents want to work,” the DPS officer on Harris Ranch said, “but their upper management . . . got them changing diapers.” A more criminal element is all but invited to enter.
While it’s not certain where the migrants are going, local law officers shared a shocking reality of how they’re getting there. Getaway drivers on this side of the border, the vast majority of whom are Americans, help smugglers transport illegal immigrants. Brad Coe, sheriff of Kinney County, told me that 90 percent of the “smugglers” they’re catching are Americans.
Human smugglers often work as middlemen, contacting Americans, many of them minors, to do their dirty work. On April 11, the Daily Mail published a report on American smugglers, many of whom are recruited via social media to pick up migrants along the border:
The teens, some as young as 13 years old, are contacted by online recruiters offering hundreds of dollars per migrant they drive across the southwest border. . . . The smugglers convince the teen drivers they are unlikely to face legal consequences for smuggling the migrants, mainly Mexican adults, into the U.S. because they are minors.
This lines up with what Sheriff Coe told me: Smugglers outsource driving to others, creating a sort of ring, in order to keep their hands clean. “[The smuggler] runs the risk of going to jail” so, “nine times out of ten, [the smuggler] won’t even know who [the driver] is” because he outsources on social media. Coe listed platforms such as TikTok and WhatsApp.
Coe said that just about any demographic could be involved in smuggling: “male, female, black, white, just anyone. . . . We’ve had 15-year-olds all the way up to people in their 70s.” Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez from Val Verde County, right on the southern border, told me that smugglers come from all over Texas and beyond. “People come in from Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and smuggle people,” he said. The Val Verde deputy told me that drivers come from different states, some as far as Chicago.
“It’s easy money,” Coe told me. The deputy said that drivers can make anywhere from $1,200 to $5,000 a head.
Despite being a quick buck, sometimes this outsourced smuggling can have deadly consequences. Often, getaway cars get caught up in high-speed pursuits when law enforcement detects smuggling. From the Daily Mail article:
Of greatest concern are incidents such as when an El Paso 18-year-old crashed his sedan crammed with 10 people after being chased by Border Patrol in 2020. Four local teens and three migrants were killed.
The ACLU has called on Border Patrol to “hedge against them conducting these types of dangerous vehicle pursuits,” given the high instance of death and injury, especially with a recruited minor at the wheel.
Border communities are paying a steep price for erratic evasion tactics. In Uvalde, where I spent the day with Mayor Don McLaughlin, I learned that high-speed chases, or “bailouts,” were responsible for 48 school lockdowns in just a year. McLaughlin told me that aside from the dangerous driving and frequent crashes, bailouts sometimes involve drivers with firearms.
Bailouts often end in crashes. Pointing at fences along a road in Uvalde, McLaughlin explained: “They’ll run through these fences and then ‘bail out’ and then try to outrun [law enforcement].”
McLaughlin told me that one of the most dangerous aspects of bailouts is the drivers’ lack of regard for those they transport. Smugglers, he told me, “have no care for human life.” Many crash, flee, and leave their passengers in whatever condition to face an unknown fate.