Much of the focus of Enrique's Journey spotlights the immigrants who take the extensive and dangerous journey north, riding freight trains across Central America without much aid from others. However, what caught my attention the most was how people who have more money pay smugglers to get them into the United States. I was particularly interested in the methods and trail which the smugglers and their clients traveled, and how reliable the smugglers actually ended up being. If the smugglers were paid up front, it isn't at all surprising that they were not very loyal to their clients, as was described in the case of the four-year-old being abandoned by his smuggler (pg 21). The other thing that intrigued me about that example was the fact that the smuggler was female; it made me wonder about the risk factor of sexual abuse for women in that business. Through research I discovered that the smuggling of immigrants across borders is a flourishing business which is very difficult to contain or stop because it is an underground operation. According to the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), the principal route from Southern to northern America alone along with the one from Africa to Europe earns these smuggling criminals around $6.75 billion a year. Most illegal immigrants are smuggled in trucks across the border, although sometimes they also come by foot or even through tunnels. It is estimated that three million illegal entries are made into the United States each year. Smugglers charge a range of fees from $2,000 to $10,000. Smugglers are often part of a larger network of criminals, some trained to smuggle people, others not. As well as physically helping immigrants cross the border, smugglers are often involved in document fraud such as acquiring fake passports. Sometimes the smugglers take immigrants hostage for additional income or simply abandon them along the way. It was difficult to find information about women smugglers and the role they play in the trade, but through this research it has become obvious that immigrants are subject to extensive cruelties at the hands of gangsters, corrupt police and even the smugglers that they believe will fulfill their dream of starting over.
Note: this is where I found most of my information; it is a really interesting site with lots of information about other aspects of illegal immigration as well as smugglers. You should check it out if you want to find out more: http://www.unodc.org/toc/en/crimes/migrant-smuggling.html
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ReplyDeleteI just accidentally deleted my comment. So much anger.
DeleteHuman Trafficking has become an increasingly large problem in Mexico. With the rise in immigration to the United States, we are also seeing a correlating rise in Smugglers. On page 40, the author describes how "Each central American Neighborhood has a smuggler," and many of the abuses these smugglers commit, simply because they can. According to the US Department of State (http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/142760.htm), the vast majority of forced workers and sex slaves in Mexico emigrated from South and Central America, with hopes of finding homes, jobs, and loved ones. The most common place that unaccompanied minors are abducted is at the Guatemalan border, in the vast, mountainous stretches where law enforcement is virtually nonexistent, along with any chance of being found. Along with forced labor and prostitution, younger children are often injured or mutilated in some way, then sent on the streets to beg. These crimes will most often never be punished, as the ones who are in captivity are a sort of criminal themselves, and those who are holding them captive are paying to make sure that the law turns a blind eye. In order to solve this human trafficking epidemic, we must first aid the economies of the nations that these people feel they need to escape from.
ReplyDeletemost information yielded from http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/142760.htm
Reading about the immigrants that raise money for smugglers made me curious about the immigrants that come into the US legally. According to The Center for American Progress, of the immigrants that come through the US legal channels, 29% go through without authorization, while 44% of immigrants that come into the US do it legally. Of these, 24% are now permanent legal citizens and 3% have temporary residency. The same source stated that it costs over $1,300.00 to file the paper work and around $1,500.00 to get a lawyer. This adds up to a total of $2,800.00, not including the cost for a passport. For the Hispanic immigrants the cost is ridiculously high considering the amount of them coming to the US to escape poverty. It is much cheaper to come into the US illegally. I believe this is one of the main reasons why people try flee into the US without authorization.
ReplyDeleteAfter researching and reading an article on The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/16994348), I found that most of the smugglers are part of drug gangs that currently rule the borders between Mexico and South America as well as Mexico and the United States. In Mexico currently, those who have the most power and make the rules tend to be those with the most manpower and firearms. Drug gangs both have more manpower and more firearms than the Mexican police at this time, making them a hugely powerful force in immigration from North from Central America. People smugglers are called coyotes in Mexico, and they are known to take the money given up front for transporting people illegally into the United States, and then kidnap their charges, demanding ransom in addition to the money payed initially. When no ransom is payed, coyotes often murder their victims, or abandon them, as Enrique's mother's did when she was traveling north. The most shocking thing that I found was that police often collude with the gangsters and coyotes. Of 238 migrants interviewed, 91 said that they had seen migration officers and police officers directly involved with migrant kidnappers, and 99 said that they had seen police and migration officers colluding with gangsters. The sheer multitude of crooked officers of the law in Central America and Mexico is what makes people-smuggling through Mexico so dangerous, and why hiring an expensive smuggler can be as dangerous or even more dangerous than traveling as Enrique did, by trains.
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