EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The man stands in front of a camera, his gym bag in the background and a happy face emoji covering his face.
“Good morning. Today is April 6 and we are in El Paso, thank God. (Name deleted) brought us here,” he says. Words embedded in the video proclaim: “We have openings. Message for information.”
Another video on the same TikTok account shows a group of migrants using a ladder to go up the border wall from Mexico, and then down to the U.S. side. Displaying balance and strength, a thin-framed “foot guide” pulls up the aluminum ladder and flips it over the top of the wall back to Mexico.
Other videos found by Border Report on social media show men walking a rocky trail from Juarez, Mexico, to Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, New Mexico. Adalid Lopez’s “Consulado Expres” plays in the background. “I have an express consulate/we send people to the USA/No paperwork, no visas, no passports/Just have the money in your hand.”
For months, if not longer, the U.S. Border Patrol has been warning about transnational criminal organizations recruiting migrants by making false claims on social media pages and private chats. But instead of a happy ending, many who try to evade apprehension by going over mountains, wading across bodies of water or walking through the desert end up dead.
Migrant encounters along the Southwest border have plummeted since Mexico began to crack down on people riding atop cargo trains and the Biden administration closed the border to asylum for those illegally coming across between ports of entry on June 4.
But that hasn’t stopped hundreds from paying cartel smugglers to bring them across, as evidenced by the growing number of deaths and rescues in smuggling corridors in Southern New Mexico.
“Do not believe the lies of criminal smugglers who make false promises of a safe and easy journey when encouraging migrants to illegally cross the border,” the federal agency said in an email to Border Report on Wednesday. “Transnational criminal organizations do not care about the safety and well-being of migrants. They only care about the money they can make from exploiting vulnerable people.”
Some of the social media pages state the crossings are “100% guaranteed” and that they have the equipment and resources to get people to their destination. Through song, they don’t make any effort to hide who they are.
“Somos polleros, coyotes (We are smugglers)/We are our countrymen’s ticket/So they are poor no longer,” another song says on a social media page advertising successful “deliveries” to El Paso and Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Reporters in El Paso on Wednesday reached out to at least one of these social media accounts but got no answer. The operators claim they are from Juarez, Mexico.
Immigration advocates in El Paso said they regret that migrants continue to place their lives in the hands of smugglers. But they said that only accentuates the need for comprehensive immigration reform in the United States.
“The militarization of the U.S. border, the closing of asylum venues has a direct relationship with the increase in business for the criminal organizations offering to bring people across through remote, very dangerous places,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of Border Network for Human Rights. “They are making so much money crossing people across, almost as much money as they make by crossing drugs across.”
Garcia said the latest federal policies not only make criminals of legitimate asylum-seekers who don’t have the means to wait a long time for an appointment at a port of entry, but also prevent able-bodied workers from filling vacant jobs in American farm, construction, health care and other strategic industries.
“We have a void in immigration laws that deprives us of workers and keeps family members from joining their relatives in the United States. Those are among the largest groups crossing the border right now,” Garcia said. “If we had an immigration reform that provided more family visas, more work permits, we would not be having people hiring smugglers to go over mountains or deserts.”