In a grim reminder of the perils faced by migrants, 53 individuals from Mexico and Central America were found dead in a tractor-trailer in San Antonio in June 2022. These people were driven by the desire to provide for their families, escape poverty and violence, and seek better opportunities. Having already endured harsh conditions to reach the U.S. border, they had paid significant sums to smugglers, highlighting the dangerous reliance on these networks for unauthorized border crossings. Migrant smuggling is no longer the realm of individual “coyotes”; it has morphed over the last decade into a “multi-billion-dollar international business controlled by organized crime.” Less structured and less violent smuggling operations are increasingly being absorbed by larger, more menacing transnational networks. Alarmingly, over 20,000 migrants are kidnapped annually, and the violence perpetrated by drug cartels in Mexico continues to claim tens of thousands of lives each year.
This paper will delve into the connection between Mexican Cartels and human smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border. While these links are not new, the intensification of the drug war and heightened border security have amplified the role of drug cartels in migrant smuggling as a means to boost their profits. This shift has resulted in increased dangers and violence for migrants attempting to reach the United States.
History of Cartel Involvement in Migrant Smuggling
Before the 1990s, human smuggling and drug trafficking were largely separate criminal enterprises. Human smuggling was often managed by local families in border regions. These smugglers would guide migrants across the border and assist them in reaching their final destinations. However, the 1990s marked a turning point with increased border enforcement and militarization. Initiatives such as Operation Gatekeeper, Operation Hold-the-Line, Operation Safeguard, Operation Río Grande, the Arizona Border Control Initiative, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 were implemented over the following three decades to fortify the border. These enhanced enforcement policies drastically altered the human smuggling landscape, causing smaller, less sophisticated organizations to be overtaken by transnational criminal networks better equipped to adapt to the changing environment. In essence, increased border enforcement inadvertently led to human smuggling becoming more organized, dangerous, and lucrative.
This growing militarization of the border, coupled with intensified efforts by Mexican authorities to combat cartels, fueled a surge in drug trafficking-related violence. Irregular migration subsequently became a highly profitable venture for transnational criminal organizations. These groups exploit the vulnerability of migrants, who are often hesitant to report crimes against them, and the fact that many migrants possess the financial resources needed for their journey. Cartels now operate with specialized teams handling logistics, transportation, and surveillance, generating revenues estimated to reach up to $13 billion. As one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official stated, “[t]he sheer number of people seeking to cross made migrant smuggling an irresistible moneymaker for some cartels.”
Border policies implemented across various administrations have further aggravated this situation. Asylum seekers waiting in Mexico for extended periods, sometimes years, have become increasingly vulnerable to victimization by drug cartels and other criminal elements, with thousands falling prey to kidnapping and other violent crimes. Furthermore, policies like Title 42 expulsions have resulted in migrants attempting multiple border crossings, which in turn allows coyotes to charge migrants repeatedly, inflating their profits. According to a Border Patrol official, migrant smuggling has evolved into a year-round, highly profitable business for criminal organizations.
Cartel Practices: Exploiting Migrant Vulnerability
Mexican drug cartels are primarily driven by profit, devoid of any political or ideological motivations. They exploit irregular migration through various methods, including kidnapping migrants for ransom, imposing territorial quotas that must be paid for passage through cartel-controlled areas, and recruiting human smugglers into their ranks. Historically, smaller smuggling operations, often family-run, operated with the cartels’ consent, paying them for permission to work in their territories. However, cartels have now assumed a far more direct and controlling role, with profits flowing directly to the cartel leadership before filtering down.
Kidnapping for Ransom: A Lucrative Enterprise
Kidnapping migrants has become an extremely lucrative business for transnational criminal organizations like Mexican cartels. However, this profitability is contingent on scale, requiring the abduction of large numbers of migrants. A 2011 report by Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights described cartel-led kidnapping as “widespread and systematic.” Operating kidnapping schemes on this scale demands a complex infrastructure of safe houses, weapons, communication equipment, and vehicles. Kidnapped migrants are coerced into providing phone numbers of family members who are then extorted for ransom for the migrant’s release. Victims may face threats of death or torture if they refuse to cooperate or if their families fail to pay. Disturbingly, there are reports of kidnapped migrants being forced to join cartels and engage in activities such as smuggling weapons or drugs.
Kidnapping is a low-risk, high-reward activity for cartels due to the precarious legal status of migrants. Migrants often fear retaliation and are reluctant to contact Mexican law enforcement, often due to a lack of trust in the police. Moreover, once released, most kidnapped migrants prioritize continuing their journey to the United States.
Territorial Fees: Cartel Tolls on Migrant Routes
Drug cartels typically do not directly manage migrant smuggling operations themselves. Instead, they generate revenue by charging “piso” or territorial fees to coyotes and other criminal groups operating within their defined territories. This system essentially functions as a tax on migrant smuggling. However, it’s crucial to understand that coyotes and cartels are not entirely separate entities. A 2022 New York Times report indicated that crossing the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo, Texas, was “impossible” without engaging a coyote connected to the Cartel del Noreste, a splinter group of the notorious Los Zetas syndicate. In such cartel-controlled zones, smuggling fees can escalate to several thousand dollars. The fees levied by cartels on coyotes have risen so dramatically that many human smugglers are struggling to remain profitable independently. In response, many coyotes and smaller human smuggling operations have either exited the business or formally integrated with and now operate directly under the cartels.
Recruitment of Human Smugglers: Absorbing Expertise
The escalating violence and militarization along the border have led to increased recruitment of former independent smugglers by drug cartels. Their intimate knowledge of the border terrain, surveillance methods, and risk tolerance makes these former smugglers valuable assets for cartels. Criminal organizations prioritize their recruitment, often assigning them to “more harmful activities” beyond just smuggling. These recruited smugglers have taken on key roles in a range of cartel operations, from drug and arms trafficking to kidnapping and murder. Their expertise is particularly valuable in kidnapping operations, where they are adept at identifying migrants who are likely to have financial resources or family networks capable of paying ransoms.
Policy Solutions: Toward Humane and Effective Border Management
The relentless militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border has paradoxically driven migrants to more dangerous routes, increased their reliance on smugglers, and fueled cartel violence. Despite successive U.S. administrations adopting increasingly enforcement-focused border policies, these measures have largely failed to curb violence or weaken the cartels, which continue to adapt and evolve rapidly. In the absence of meaningful, comprehensive immigration policy reforms, a purely enforcement-based approach to border management has proven ineffective.
Counterintuitively, the most effective strategies for undermining smuggling networks and disrupting the cartels’ business model involve creating viable and safe legal pathways for migrants. Allowing migrants to cross into Mexico safely, present themselves at U.S. ports of entry, and have their asylum cases processed efficiently offers a more humane and workable alternative. Such an approach also directly weakens the cartels’ ability to profit from irregular migration. Expanding legal pathways reduces the demand for smuggling services, thus undermining the financial foundation of transnational criminal organizations, while simultaneously freeing up border enforcement resources to focus on interdicting genuinely dangerous threats, such as fentanyl and other illicit drugs.
Conclusion: Reforming Asylum and Expanding Legal Pathways
Increased border enforcement and militarization have inadvertently made human smuggling a more sophisticated and profitable enterprise, significantly benefiting Mexican cartels. Border policies across multiple administrations have, unintentionally, fostered an environment where migrant kidnapping has become a highly lucrative business for cartels and transnational criminal organizations. Independent coyotes and smaller human smuggling operations have been forced to adapt, either by leaving the business or by becoming absorbed into cartel structures, leading to a surge in both violence and smuggling costs. To effectively weaken transnational criminal organizations operating at and beyond the U.S.-Mexico border, fundamental reforms to the asylum system and a significant expansion of legal migration pathways are essential.
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The Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force would like to thank Leighton Fernando G. Cook, National Immigration Forum policy intern, for his extensive contributions to this white paper.
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