By Juan Cooper - Telemundo Investiga News
TIJUANA.- When Pedro was 10 or 12 years old, he worked distracting the Border Patrol while, at another point on the border with Tijuana, a coyote irregularly introduced a group of migrants to the United States.
They were your first steps as a coyote or guide, as you prefer to be called.
Pedro [not his real name] grew up in Soler and Libertad, two neighborhoods that line the huge metal wall through which the glow of San Diego, the American dream in this part of the border, seeps.
At the age of 18 he was already crossing the migrants through the desert himself
.
Today, with 51 years and 40 by trade behind him, he knows all the tricks to try to turn that dream into reality in exchange for a few thousand dollars, although there are migrants who also pay for it with their lives.
[The Government files charges against the person allegedly responsible for the death of 13 migrants in an accident in California]
The path of the coyote and its clients is full of dangers: “Once I got lost and a very heavy snow fell.
I lost my way, didn't know where to walk, and we began to suffer from hypothermia.
They found us on the American side and grabbed us, when most of us were dying ”.
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Tijuana is the end of the road for thousands of migrants crossing Mexico.
While
most wait in shelters and camps for the United States to respond to their asylum requests
, others decide to hire coyotes to cross them irregularly, risking their lives and freedom.
The Customs and Border Protection Office registered a record of 100,441 people intercepted at the border in February, at a rate of 3,500 a day, three times more than in February 2020. It is unknown how many paid a coyote, but Pedro does not lack the job.
The essential thing to be a good coyote at this point on the border, says Pedro, is to have a good, big car, a good driver, and a house where they can take refuge once in the United States, near the line.
Depending on how much money the migrants can pay,
there is a whole catalog of options to cross into the United States.
"A chicken man never abandons his chickens"
The most widely used method is to cross them through the desert, in areas where there is no border wall but there is a variety of natural obstacles that make the journey last between four hours and four days, depending on the time of year and the route chosen.
[In pictures: this is how migrants are crowded into temporary Border Patrol facilities in Texas]
In a truck, they put five to ten migrants, and they drive at least two hours to leave the limits of Tijuana, and reach desert areas in the states of Baja California and Sonora.
Juan Cooper, a reporter for Noticias Telemundo Investiga, interviews Orlando, an experienced 63-year-old coyote in the Soler neighborhood of Tijuana.
Telemundo News
For these crossings,
coyotes charge $ 8,000
, half in advance, says Orlando, another coyote [not his real name] with almost 40 years of experience interviewed in the Soler neighborhood of Tijuana, behind the border wall.
"This is the most difficult way to get to the United States but the safest, because it is less monitored and there is a greater probability of achieving it," he explains.
When he talks about security, he seems to refer only to the certainty of not being intercepted by the immigration authorities.
High temperatures during the day and intense cold at night, coupled with food and water shortages, often make migrants dehydrated or disoriented.
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Orlando maintains that coyotes don't usually abandon their clients midway, and they work hard to keep the group together.
But during the last fiscal year
the Border Patrol found 300 migrants dead on the border with Mexico
, mostly from hypothermia, dehydration and pneumonia.
“A migrant has never died for me.
A guide never abandons the chickens, those who die are those who have already crossed the desert once and, for not paying, it is easy for them to put themselves down the road and that is where misfortunes happen, they get lost and die of thirst , heat and hunger because their survival has not been calculated ”, explains Orlando, referring to the food and water rations they need.
20 years ago, Orlando led groups of up to 70 migrants on a single trip through the desert.
However, with the advancement of satellite detection technology and the hundreds of watchtowers that the United States has installed along the border to detect the movement of migrants,
now coyotes make trips of up to 10 people
, and they walk at a slower pace.
The Border Patrol gives water to migrants in Penitas, Texas, after finding them crossing the border irregularly on March 26, 2021. Dehydration is one of the most frequent causes of death among migrants crossing through the desert.
John Moore / Getty Images / Getty Images
When they successfully cross into the United States, the migrants are taken to safe houses in towns near the border.
The coyote receives the rest of the payment through bank transfers or cash drafts, and the migrants pass into the hands of the
raideros
, the transporters who take them to the cities where their family or friends await them.
[Visa for young immigrants, who can apply for it and what are the requirements?]
The
raidero
service
is included in the price of the coyote: they charge around $ 1,000 to take them to distant cities like Chicago or New York, and about $ 600 to drop them off in Los Angeles, Houston, or cities closer to the border.
Narcos and 'bajadores'
Crossing through the desert carries other dangers: many times the routes through which coyotes take migrants are the same ones that cartels use to move drugs.
Therefore, they must pay them a
floor fee
for each immigrant.
"That gives you security, because that sign is not going to allow downloaders to operate in its area and you can travel the route freely," explains Pedro.
The bajadores are gangs of criminals who are dedicated to kidnapping migrants
and then collecting the ransom from their family and friends who live in the United States.
For Orlando, these represent the greatest danger of the journey through the desert.
[The Border Patrol publishes images of their detention centers after criticism and leaks for their opacity]
"The key to walking through the desert is not to stop for long to rest, because now there are many assailants and kidnappers who bring devices to see at night and locate us to take the migrants," explains Orlando.
US militiamen find abandoned migrant clothing in a remote area of the Sonoran desert.
Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images / Corbis via Getty Images
According to the Human Rights Watch organization, kidnapping and extortion are the crimes that most affect migrants as they pass through Mexico.
Claudia, a Honduran migrant, experienced it firsthand.
She left San Pedro Sula last October, where the gangs threatened her with death, she says.
Upon arriving in Puebla, in central Mexico, she was kidnapped and raped.
Two months later he managed to escape, breaking his foot in doing so.
Today, he waits in a border city of Tamaulipas for the United States to grant him asylum.
"Since I left my house it has been a nightmare, on the way so many things have happened to me," says Claudia with a broken voice and tears.
'Nails' and corrupt officials
One of the safest and most expensive ways to cross into the United States, and offered only by a few coyotes, is to hide migrants in
nails
, as the secret compartments in vehicles passing through the border are known.
However, not all migrants can choose this option.
"Normally they are people with a thin complexion, small, who can even fit on the dashboard of a car, behind the seat, on the platforms of
pickups
, or
vans,
" explains Pedro.
[The migrant caravan that left for the United States dissolved in Honduras]
The coyote assures that these crossings are coordinated with United States immigration officials, who receive large bribes for letting certain vehicles pass.
Therefore, he adds, the cost to migrants can be as high as $ 20,000.
Customs and Border Protection agents find a woman hiding inside a vehicle at the San Ysidro checkpoint, trying to cross into the United States.
HECTOR MATA / AFP via Getty Images /
"Many times we are told a time and the line to go, since sometimes the Migra is also arranged to let us pass," explains Pedro, referring to the checkpoints and officials of the Customs and Border Protection Office.
Noticias Telemundo Investiga sent a request to this agency to ask about these alleged bribes that some of its agents receive, but we did not receive a response.
The
crossing
cheaper and migrants who pay more
Thousands of migrants arrive in Tijuana each year, with different profiles, since not all are Central American or Mexican.
There are people from
South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, waiting for weeks for the opportunity to cross into the United States with one of these coyotes.
And not all migrants are treated the same.
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“With the people who know that the United States has a slogan not to let them enter, or that they put many requirements on them, such as those of Iraq, those of Afghanistan, the Russians, the Chinese, all of them, they are charged more expensive.
Because if they discover you with one of them, they classify you as a member of an international network, and the penalties are higher, ”says Pedro.
The cheapest way that coyotes in Tijuana offer to cross the border costs $ 5,000 and is through the hill, within the urban area where the border wall still exists.
They pass it in different ways,
through pipes full of rodents and bats that cross both countries
, opening holes in the wall with sophisticated tools and closing it again, or simply jumping the wall with the help of cranes.
Hundreds of migrants who arrive each year in Tijuana to try to cross irregularly into the United States, stay in hotels in the center of the city, say some coyotes.
Telemundo News
These methods typically require a group of distractors posing as migrants but are actually young people from Tijuana who jump over the wall for the Border Patrol to arrest them and return them to Mexico while the coyotes cross the migrants the other way.
In recent years, Pedro says, this way of crossing has become more difficult, and there is a 50% chance of being stopped by the Border Patrol.
For this reason, it is the cheapest method.
Boats and narcotunnels for rent
Baja California's geographic location allows the sea to be another option for migrants to reach US soil.
This method can cost about $ 15,000, and it also has a few quirks.
“We know the times when the
migras
are already tired
, about to change the guard, it is regularly at dawn, very early in the morning.
A speedboat with reinforced engines sets sail, reaches point X on the California coast, and there are some cars waiting for us to take us to safety ”, says Pedro.
[Lawyer clarifies the most frequent immigration doubts]
Many coyotes are part of criminal networks, which have high-level contacts with cartels like the one in Sinaloa, with decades of experience building narcotunnels.
In fact, the first border agents found was in May 1990 in Douglas, Arizona, and it belonged to the criminal organization led by Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán.
One of the most expensive methods of crossing into the US offered by coyotes is by speedboats that reach the coast of California.
Telemundo News
For this reason, coyotes often rent narcotunnels to cartels that operate in Baja California and Sonora to cross migrants.
This type of crossing can reach a value of $ 25,000 depending on who the customer is, according to Pedro.
Both Pedro and Orlando have been arrested several times by the Border Patrol, and have spent months in federal prisons.
However, they do not feel criminal.
Pedro does not believe that he is committing any crime.
On the contrary, his work is necessary, he assures: “Most of the people that one takes there are pure working people.
These people send remittances here in Mexico, so they all contribute to the country's economy. "
