Inside a Cartel Smuggling Operation Into West Texas
Salesmen offer package deals from Central America
By Todd Bensman on April 28, 2021
OJINAGA, Mexico — The nine Central Americans walked single file from a Mexican customs building at the Presidio-Ojinaga International Bridge and out onto the street with no food, no plan, and the heavy burden of bad luck.
The U.S. Border Patrol had caught them on a ranch about 80 or 100 miles inside Texas following a six-day wilderness trek and, under the so-called Title 42 pandemic-containment policy now being applied mainly to single adults, immediately transported them almost to square one. Now, a gambit to achieve American dreams as illegal workers, for which the eight Guatemalans and one Salvadoran each paid cartel smugglers $11,000 in borrowed money from family and friends ($12,000 for the Salvadoran) was a total loss.
The immigrants felt dejected and ruined by the bankruptcy of an endeavor that succeeded for everyone else they knew: cousins, neighbors, friends, a sister. Short of a second big smuggling fee, most said they’d return to their home countries.
https://cis.org/Bensman/Inside-Cartel-Smuggling-Operation-West-Texas
