Experts Say US Immigration Crackdown Makes Smuggling Operations Riskier Olivia P. Tallet - Houston Chronicle
go to original July 24, 2017

UT researchers on San Antonio human smuggling: "This happens every day" (KXAN)

Update: Feds: Tenth Human Trafficking Victim Found in Sweltering Truck Dies at Hospital (CBS News)

As the federal government cracks down on immigration, smugglers are turning to riskier and deadlier ways of getting immigrants into the United States, according to experts and advocates who blamed a slew of failed policies for the death of nine immigrants stowed away in a hot tractor-trailer in San Antonio.

It's a tragic outcome and a crime to smuggle these immigrants, said Jeronimo Cortina, a professor and research associate at the University of Houston's Center for Public Policy. "The real tragedy," said Cortina, "is that deaths like those in this case are going to be happening again and again, or even more if we don't tackle the root of the problem."

Cortina and other experts argue that workers will continue to enter the U.S. illegally as long as there is a supply of jobs, particularly in industries such as agriculture, hospitality and construction.

"It's a market rule, and it's not going to change just because you put up more walls," Cortina said. "And since there aren't efficient legal mechanisms to deal with this offer-demand cycles, the law of the market is fulfilled instead in the realm of the" black market.

... With more militarization of the border, coyotes tend to reduce their risks by making fewer trips with more immigrants in each vehicle, according to Salinas.

The immigrants found in the truck in San Antonio probably came up Interstate 35 from the border, Canales said. They most likely were loaded onto a truck at a stash house near Laredo or hiked around the checkpoint, an arduous ordeal that can take days, before being loaded into the trailer. Either way, they would have been exposed to hot and dangerous conditions, he said.

"There's no vents in those trucks, in those tractor-trailers to let air in," Canales said. "And that's a very, very desperate situation for someone to get into that truck like that. People think it's going to be a short drive to San Antonio."

Some survivors told local reporters Sunday that the truck was headed to Houston.

Read the rest at Houston Chronicle

Related: Mexican Consul on Hot Truck Victims: 'Seeing Their Suffering... Was Heartbreaking' (KENS5)

Related: Zetas Cartel Linked to Deadly San Antonio Human Smuggling Case, Survivor Says (Click2Houston)

Related: How Human Smuggling Works and Why It's Such Big Business (WTSP)

Related: Trump Doesn’t Want to Help These Victims of Human Trafficking. So Mexico — and Everyday Americans — Are Stepping in to Save the Day (GOOD)

Related: ICE Chief on Truck Deaths: Human Smugglers Must Be ‘Caught and Punished’ (Polizette)

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