Human smugglers use social media to recruit American TEENS to drive migrants from Mexican border

Gebruikersavatar
noumoe
Site Admin
Site Admin
Berichten: 5550
Lid geworden op: 22 nov 2020 15:27
Contacteer:

Human smugglers use social media to recruit American TEENS to drive migrants from Mexican border

Bericht door noumoe »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... order.html

Human smugglers use social media to recruit American TEENS to drive migrants from Mexican border enticing them with large payouts and promises they won't face criminal charges
Human smugglers are targeting American teens, some as young as 13, on social media to help them transport illegal immigrants across the border
The smugglers convince the teen drivers they are unlikely to face legal consequences for smuggling due to their age
They also offer to pay them hundreds of dollars per migrant they transport
Around one in four drivers caught smuggling migrants last year near Sunland Park, New Mexico were children, Border Patrol reported
Agents claim the growing number of underage drivers has resulted in an 'increase in erratic driving,' high-speed chases and crashes
By NATASHA ANDERSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and REUTERS

PUBLISHED: 12:01 BST, 11 April 2022

Human smugglers are using social media to lure American teenagers into helping them transport illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico.

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.


Around one in four drivers caught smuggling migrants last year near Sunland Park, New Mexico, an area of high recruitment due to its proximity to the border, were children, most U.S. citizens living locally.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has also arrested teen drivers from communities from Texas and California. They argue the growing trend of underage smugglers has resulted in an 'increase in erratic driving by inexperienced drivers, often observed exceeding posted speed limits, and driving against oncoming traffic'.

Teen drivers also tend to flee at high speeds when officers try to stop them, leading to pursuits by Border Patrol agents and crashes
Knipsel.JPG
Knipsel.JPG
Knipsel.JPG (66.35 KiB) 83 keer bekeken
Santi, 17, is one of several teens recruited by smugglers to pick up migrants less than a mile from the Mexican border and take them to nearby El Paso, Texas.

The high schooler, who asked to be identified only as Santi and that his vehicle details not be disclosed because ferrying migrants is illegal, recalled a cloudy night in which he worked as a driver for a smuggling group out of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Santi said he sat in his car outside shops in Sunland Park, monitoring a pulsing blue dot on his cell phone, which pings every 15 seconds.

He is parked about 900 feet west of a white and green U.S. Border Patrol pickup. The migrants are hiding in the desert around 1,000 feet south.

Santi and the migrants share their locations as a contact of the American side of the border messages instructions.

'It's a good day for pickups,' the teen recalled, noting the cloudy sky. He said U.S. agents in helicopters struggle to see migrants through clouds and strong winds may stop their drones from flying.

The smugglers, meanwhile, push migrants across rocky Mount Cristo Rey where there is no border barrier. When the parked Border Patrol truck drives off down McNutt Road, Santi heads toward a migrant rendezvous.

Santi has transported migrants for a year and has been stopped by Border Patrol but never charged. He knows the stakes will be higher once he is 18.

'I don't want to go to jail for this,' he said.
Knipsel.JPG
Mexican youth have long guided migrants into the U.S., but now Border Patrol is seeing an influx in American children aiding with illegal smuggling as well.

Gerardo Galvan, the patrol agent in charge of the Sunland Park area, noticed the rise in juvenile drivers in 2021 after a 14-year-old fled agents and crashed into a Border Patrol van.
Knipsel.JPG
Knipsel.JPG (28.43 KiB) 83 keer bekeken
'They're told that if they go fast enough we're going to stop pursuing them,' Galvan said.

Galvan said he was working with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to charge juvenile drivers.

The office of the federal defender in Las Cruces represented four minors for migrant smuggling in the first few months of 2022 after six cases in all of 2021, according to Assistant Federal Public Defender Amanda Skinner.

Unless the child has been in trouble before, the majority of juvenile cases result in probation until the age of 21, she said.

'We don't typically see higher-ups charged. The vast majority of our cases are drivers,' said Skinner.

Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea sees no easy fix to the juvenile driver problem.

'The last thing we want to do is criminalize our youth,' said Perea, whose town provides work opportunities for teenagers and is planning an outreach program to deter drivers.

'We don't want our youth to become, you know, scarred or to have consequences that prohibit them from serving in the military service if that's a path they want to proceed into the future, or being able to get certain jobs into the future that can get them out of poverty if they're in poverty. So it does have an effect in the community.'
Knipsel.JPG
Knipsel.JPG
The young drivers, whom locals jokingly call Ubers, see the smuggling as an easy way to get ahead in Sunland Park, a working-class town with three times the national poverty rate where a third of residents are under 18 and many children live with grandparents.

'We are a low-income community. And then when they're presented with an opportunity, well, it's easy money,' the mayor added.

'You know, you're not going to get in trouble. It makes it easy for someone to, I think, take that opportunity and, you know, risk their future.'

For activists like Irma Cruz, teen drivers are caught between the multi-billion-dollar human smuggling business and the U.S. government's policy to 'militarize' the border as a deterrence.

'They're easy prey, and they're being used,' said Cruz, campaign director for Border Network for Human Rights, an immigration advocacy group that also educates border residents on civil rights.

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 American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. lawmakers are calling on Border Patrol to only chase suspects at high speed if they believe a violent felony has been committed.

'If Border Patrol itself knows that such a high percentage of the drivers of these vehicles in particular areas are children being recruited in this way, then that should hedge against them conducting these types of dangerous vehicle pursuits,' said ACLU lawyer Shaw Drake.

Galvan said agents attempting to stop a vehicle did not know whether the driver was a child or adult.

He said agents are not to engage in pursuits around schools and in residential areas at busy times of day, and must receive permission from a supervisor to continue a chase.

Meanwhile, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden expects another record-breaking year for migrant arrests on the southwest border as Title 42, a COVID-era policy that blocked most asylum claims, is set to lift in May.

CBP predicts that when Title 42 is dropped, the number of apprehensions will jump to 18,000 per day from the current record-breaking number of 8,000 each day.

Other estimates say that the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico will triple. Title 42 was initially implemented under then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 as a response from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the emergence to COVID-19 pandemic.

The policy has been used by both the Trump and Biden administration to instantly expel migrants at the border without hearing asylum claims.

Both presidencies have defended the process in court.
Knipsel.JPG
President for the National Border Patrol Council Brandon Judd told DailyMail.com in an interview last week that the whole process for expulsion with Title 42 takes about 15 minutes.

Even with Title 42 in place, there has still been a mass amount of migrants arriving at the southern border since Biden took office, with around 2.2 million apprehensions since February 2021.

The CDC announced last Friday that it will end Title 42 on May 23. This immediately sparked fears from both sides of the aisle, including from Biden's team, that a huge influx of migration will ensue.

Democrats lament that there are no alternative policies in place or ready for implementation to quell the migration surge if Title 42 is dropped.
Plaats reactie

Terug naar “Border crisis USA”