Alan Bersin
Opinion Contributors
The Hill
Over the past generation, migrant smugglers — at the outset known as "polleros"(or chicken herders) — have been viewed as a necessary evil by migrant advocacy groups. Smugglers acted illegally, to be sure, but for a worthy cause: To assist migrants to arrive at their destination and achieve a better life.
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (Ph.D. in Political Science, The New School for Social Research) Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (Ph.D. in Political Science, The New School for Social Research) is Associate Professor at the Department of Public Affairs and Security Studies, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), Brownsville Campus and is now an Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University.
Over the past generation, migrant smugglers — at the outset known as "polleros"(or chicken herders) — have been viewed as a necessary evil by migrant advocacy groups. Smugglers acted illegally, to be sure, but for a worthy cause: To assist migrants to arrive at their destination and achieve a better life.
Migrant activists, including church groups and human rights organizations, not only turned a blind eye to the law-breaking but affirmatively extended their support networks (and credibility) both to the smuggled migrants and to the (perceived) Robin Hoods who were smuggling them.
In what might have once seemed a marriage of convenience for a noble purpose, smugglers operated hand-in-hand with human rights advocacy groups along Mexico’s migration corridors. All of them viewed their activities as akin to the pre-United States civil war Underground Railroad: A network of safehouses, finances and routes through which slaves could be smuggled out of the South and brought to freedom.
Though it may have started out innocently enough, over the past ten years, the smuggling enterprise has changed dramatically and become thoroughly criminalized.
In what might have once seemed a marriage of convenience for a noble purpose, smugglers operated hand-in-hand with human rights advocacy groups along Mexico’s migration corridors. All of them viewed their activities as akin to the pre-United States civil war Underground Railroad: A network of safehouses, finances and routes through which slaves could be smuggled out of the South and brought to freedom.
Though it may have started out innocently enough, over the past ten years, the smuggling enterprise has changed dramatically and become thoroughly criminalized.
As security conditions improved steadily on the Southwest border and irregular entrance into the United States was further restricted, the price charged by smugglers rose disproportionately. In turn, as the amount of money generated by human smuggling grew, criminal groups operating along the migration routes — including drug cartels and corrupt law enforcement authorities — became major participants, and human smuggling became a central feature of their criminal businesses.
The ballad of traditional polleros — largely mom and pop smuggling operations — has given way to the human trafficking terror of organized crime. Border gangsters nowadays routinely inflict extortion, kidnapping, rape, and assault on migrants making the arduous journey north. It has been impossible for human rights organizations and church groups to credibly deny knowledge of these abuses.
This altered nature of the smuggling enterprise and the attendant human rights violations account in part for the rise of caravans. Migrants were attracted to the movement en masse to avoid both exorbitant smuggling charges and also the dangers of the journey. Ignited initially by community organizers in Honduras, the caravans grew organically and spontaneously.
The ballad of traditional polleros — largely mom and pop smuggling operations — has given way to the human trafficking terror of organized crime. Border gangsters nowadays routinely inflict extortion, kidnapping, rape, and assault on migrants making the arduous journey north. It has been impossible for human rights organizations and church groups to credibly deny knowledge of these abuses.
This altered nature of the smuggling enterprise and the attendant human rights violations account in part for the rise of caravans. Migrants were attracted to the movement en masse to avoid both exorbitant smuggling charges and also the dangers of the journey. Ignited initially by community organizers in Honduras, the caravans grew organically and spontaneously.
When they arrived on foot in Mexico, however, migrant advocacy groups — particularly Pueblo Sin Fronteras — assumed an organizing role, arranged funding and managed the logistics to transport 10,000 migrants to the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana.
In a remarkable transformation, migrant activists and advocates became migrant smugglers themselves.
The inconvenient truth is that the results have been disastrous both for migrants and for migrant advocacy groups.
The migrants and activists who sought a confrontation with the Trump Administration achieved their aim. But in so doing, they delivered to the President a border victory at a crucial political juncture: The U.S. midterm elections and the beginning of a new administration in Mexico. At the end of the year, Trump's border wall rhetoric gains momentum. At the same time, through a rather unclear migration agreement between Mexico and the United States, asylum-seekers will be forced to wait in Mexico while their requests are processed.
The confrontation at the San Ysidro border crossing had little to do with border security and nothing at all to do with an "invasion" of the United States or a major national security threat. However, the images of people rushing the border, throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents and being repulsed with tear gas, against a background of concertina wire installed by the U.S. military, could not have been better devised to foster the impression sought by President Trump. The episode, in short, was a political disaster for refugees and the migrant community in general.
Moreover, it has placed the new Lopez Obrador Administration in an untenable position as it tries to shape a new immigration policy for a Mexico which is increasingly sending fewer migrnts itself but is now a transit zone and soon to be a destination for Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty.
In a remarkable transformation, migrant activists and advocates became migrant smugglers themselves.
The inconvenient truth is that the results have been disastrous both for migrants and for migrant advocacy groups.
The migrants and activists who sought a confrontation with the Trump Administration achieved their aim. But in so doing, they delivered to the President a border victory at a crucial political juncture: The U.S. midterm elections and the beginning of a new administration in Mexico. At the end of the year, Trump's border wall rhetoric gains momentum. At the same time, through a rather unclear migration agreement between Mexico and the United States, asylum-seekers will be forced to wait in Mexico while their requests are processed.
The confrontation at the San Ysidro border crossing had little to do with border security and nothing at all to do with an "invasion" of the United States or a major national security threat. However, the images of people rushing the border, throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents and being repulsed with tear gas, against a background of concertina wire installed by the U.S. military, could not have been better devised to foster the impression sought by President Trump. The episode, in short, was a political disaster for refugees and the migrant community in general.
Moreover, it has placed the new Lopez Obrador Administration in an untenable position as it tries to shape a new immigration policy for a Mexico which is increasingly sending fewer migrnts itself but is now a transit zone and soon to be a destination for Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty.
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Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (Ph.D. in Political Science, The New School for Social Research) Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (Ph.D. in Political Science, The New School for Social Research) is Associate Professor at the Department of Public Affairs and Security Studies, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), Brownsville Campus and is now an Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University.
Her areas of expertise are Mexico-US relations, organized crime, immigration, border security, and human trafficking. Her newest book is titled Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico (University of Texas Press, 2017; Spanish version: Planeta, 2018). She was recently the Principal Investigator of a research grant to study organized crime and trafficking in persons in Central America and along Mexico’s eastern migration routes, supported by the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
She is now working on a new book project that analyzes the main political, cultural, and ideological aspects of Mexican irregular immigration in the United States and US immigration policy entitled “Illegal Aliens”: The Human Problem of Mexican Undocumented Migration."
At the same time, she is co-editing a volume titled "North American Borders in Comparative Perspective: Re-Bordering Canada, The United States of America and Mexico in the 21st Century." (in contract with University of Arizona Press, forthcoming Spring 2020).
Dr. Correa-Cabrera is Past President of the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS). She is also Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Non-resident Scholar at the Baker Institute’s Mexico Center (Rice University).