President Donald Trump speaks with Rodney Scott, the U.S. Border Patrol Chief, as he tours a section of the border wall in 2020. President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to clamp down on undocumented migrants could play into the hands of criminal groups who stand to profit from higher prices and fresh opportunities if the chaos and confusion expected from his second administration transpire.
While the specifics of Trump’s migrant policy are not yet known, the broad strokes appear clear: mass deportation and fortification of the border. And some migrant advocates told InSight Crime they were already seeing the Trump effect, with regards to the possible fortification of the border.
Ismael Rodríguez, a lawyer who works with migrants at refuge in Nogales, Sonora, along the Arizona border, said smugglers were taking advantage of Trump’s election to inject a sense of urgency into the market, raising prices accordingly. The narrative, Rodríguez said, was that Trump was going to seal the border completely.
“They sell it to you that way,” he said. “They say to them, ‘We won’t even be able to get you across [after Trump’s inauguration]. Caramba!’”
Rodríguez said some smugglers were also selling fake appointments they claimed to have gotten via CBP One, the US Customs and Border Protection phone application. The application is relatively new, but has changed the way some migrants approach going north, the lawyer added.
Many now try to book their appointments from where they live in Mexico, then make the trip to the border areas once their first interview has been granted.
Still, they often run into problems along the way. Migrants told InSight Crime that criminal groups control bus and taxi services, and route their passengers into roadblocks where they can be interrogated, extorted, and kidnapped.
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A Cartel War Equals a Migrant Nightmare
Fighting among various local factions of the Sinaloa Cartel – which began in August following the capture of two of the cartel’s leaders, Ismael “Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López, in the United States – has also made the journey more treacherous than it previously was, those interviewed said.
A researcher based in northern Sonora, who asked not to be named because of security concerns, said the criminal organization that was controlling the area aligned themselves with the Chapitos, one of the three pillars of the Sinaloa Cartel that is now fighting with the remnants of Mayo Zambada’s organization.
And Gustavo*, another Mexican who was trying to migrate to the United States, told InSight Crime that these criminal factions are fighting over migrants and control of specific corridors and crossing points.
If the guides assigned to one criminal group drift into a rival’s corridor, he said, the rivals will kidnap them and demand an equal or larger sum to cross you into the United States.
The battles have also shifted further south, the researcher added. Before, migrants could get to Altar or Caborca, two northern Sonoran cities that serve as staging areas for some of these criminal groups and migrant smugglers, with relative ease.
Now rival criminal groups are posting lookouts to stop vehicles in Hermosillo, to the south of those two border cities, in an attempt to commandeer the migrants.
In some areas where they do not have enough personnel, criminal organizations have set up booby traps. One local sent InSight Crime a photograph of a ponchallantas, a makeshift contraption that punctures car tires, on a dirt road between Altar and Sásabe, an important crossing point at the Arizona border.
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More Migrants, More Criminal Opportunity
The Trump administration’s policies appear poised to increase the number of migrants along the border and the amount of time they will have to be in this area.
In addition to thousands of potential deportees, immigration advocacy groups say the Trump administration will most likely reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forced thousands of migrants who were seeking asylum to stay in Mexico while their petitions wended their way through the US system.
The administration may also eliminate visas that provide legal status to victims of certain criminal activities.
The ideal, the lawyers said, would be for people to wait for their appointments then make the journey. The CBP One app helps in this regard, but many people do not have that option.
One migrant named Hernando* said he was fleeing criminal gangs who were extorting his ice cream parlor in central Mexico and had threatened him and his family because he could no longer pay.
Another migrant, Natalia, said she was fleeing “the four letters.” The phrase is a Mexican euphemism for the CJNG, the Spanish acronym of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), one of Mexico’s most formidable criminal organizations.
They were “sophisticated,” she told InSight Crime. They had infiltrated the federal tax agency and could thus see what she was earning and get a rough estimate of her home and other assets, and extort her accordingly.
They eventually asked for an amount she could not pay, so she fled, she said. Along the way, she ran into problems that went beyond the criminal gauntlet, among them corrupt police and frisky military soldiers.
“I don’t trust the police. I don’t trust anyone,” she said.
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From South to North, No Place to Hide
The problem extends far beyond this corridor. Provinces as far south as Chiapas, which lies along the Guatemalan border, have become feeding grounds for criminal groups who prey on migrants.
And José Israel Ibarra, a professor who studies migration and human rights at the Colegio de la Frontera in Nogales, told InSight Crime that as many as 60% of the migrants he saw in his research in Tijuana were Mexicans who had fled organized crime.
“What I would highlight is that you need mechanisms that protect people who are arriving at the border for reasons related to organized crime,” he said. “What I mean is a place of refuge, safe spaces.”
But no such mechanisms exist. Instead, migrants face long waits in precarious economic conditions surrounded by predatory criminal groups who also defraud their victims.
Hernando, for example, told InSight Crime he had paid 80,000 pesos (or about $4,000) for him and his three children to get across the border, with the false promise they would be able to remain in the United States while their asylum claims went through the US system.
What he did not know was that President Joe Biden changed that rule in June, and within 24 hours, Hernando and his children had been deported to Nogales.
“If had known, I wouldn’t have done that,” he told InSight Crime during an interview at a migrant shelter in Nogales.
The scam is typical of criminal groups who profit from the confusion and desperation of migrants, lawyers at two migrant shelters told InSight Crime.
Hernando said the smuggler was no longer answering his calls.
*All the names of the migrants have been changed for security purposes.
