In a shocking revelation, Mexican cartels have been reported to be offering premium "travel agency" packages, costing up to $15,000, to aid illegal immigrants in their covert entry into the United States via a network of underground tunnels.
According to The New York Post, this VIP smuggling operation has become so profitable that the cartels are now dedicating approximately 70% of their illicit activities to smuggling migrants across the US-Mexico border, a significant shift from their traditional focus on drug trafficking.
The La Linea cartel, in particular, is alleged to be guiding around 1,000 VIP migrants from Ciudad Jurez, Mexico into El Paso, Texas each month, as disclosed by a senior Mexican official. Arturo Velasco, the head of the Chihuahua attorney generals offices anti-kidnapping unit, noted, Criminals have shifted from their primary business, which was drug trafficking. Now 60-70% of their focus is migrant smuggling. He further explained the economic rationale behind this shift, stating, A kilo of cocaine might bring in $1,500, but the risk is very high. The cost-benefit of trafficking a person is $10,000, $12,000, $15,000.
These migration travel agency packages, as reported by both smugglers and migrants, can range from $6,000 to $15,000 per person. VIP migrants are provided with a code that identifies the cartel they have paid, allowing them to avoid harassment from local police or rival syndicates as they navigate through the tunnels.
The corruption appears to run deep, with allegations that members of the Mexican National Guard, immigration officials, and local police are complicit in the VIP scheme, accepting bribes from the cartels. In some instances, police are even accused of kidnapping migrants and holding them in safe houses until they can afford a VIP package. A smuggler, identified only as Ricardo, revealed, They load people onto their trucks, and they care for them, so that another cartel doesnt abduct them. He further disclosed that he pays nearly $600 per migrant for police protection.
Tony Payan, director of The U.S.-Mexico Center at Rice University, commented on the VIP scheme, stating, Its millions of pesos in extortions and everyone is in on it. In other words, its an extortion force. However, Jurez municipal police chief Cesar Omar Muoz Morales refuted these allegations of corruption, insisting his department was clean and efficient. Were doing the best we can, he said.
This revelation of the cartels VIP migrant operation comes on the heels of reports that approximately 42,000 migrants have illegally crossed the border from Mexico since President Biden issued a crackdown executive order earlier this month. The June 4 order threatens to halt asylum processing at the U.S. border if the average number of illegal arrivals exceeds 2,500 per day in a week. Despite this, internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data leaked to The Post shows that the average number of crossings each day has been roughly 3,200 since the order began.
Border Patrol sources disclosed that most of the migrants are still being given court dates and released into the U.S., contradicting the Biden Administrations claim that the new measure would stem the flow of illegal immigrants. This raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the current administration's immigration policies and the extent of corruption within the system.
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