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  Frontera NorteSur
April 2001

IMMIGRATION

Traffickers Arrested for Using and Renting Children to Move People and Drugs Across Border

The Reynosa, Tamaulipas newspaper El Mañana reports that the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has arrested four parents for allegedly renting their children to human and drug traffickers. Two men were arrested for human and drug trafficking as well. The six are part of a ring of Hondurans that allegedly have been operating for three years in Matamoros, Brownsville, Harlingen, Corpus Christi and Houston.

The traffickers were allegedly paying parents between US$200 and US$500 to use their young children to cross drugs and people into the US. This practice has been growing in recent years on the border because traffickers believe that children will not be prosecuted to the same extent as adults if at all. However, this case shows that the INS is now pursuing the adults behind such cases.
One child involved in the case was only seven-months old when her mother allegedly rented her to a trafficker for US$200.

Source: El Mañana de Reynosa, March 12, 2001.

US Woman Arrested for Child Trafficking in Tijuana

Tijuana city police arrested a US citizen found near the San Ysidro international port of entry with a four-year old Mexican boy. The woman told police that she was going to cross with her son into California but officers did not believe the woman's story because she is "blond with white skin" and the boy whom she said was her son looked "hispanic." Police continued questioning the woman and she admitted that the boy was not her son and that she had been hired to get him into the US and take him to his parents that live in Los Angeles.

Among the woman's belongings police found a number of birth certificates, and vaccination and school records. Police believe that this means the woman has previously engaged in such activities.

Pollero Arrested Near San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora

Mexican federal police (Policía Federal Preventiva, PFP) arrested a man who was allegedly trying to cross 28 people into the US through a desert zone near San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora.

Over the past few years crossings in such dangerous, remote locations have become more common as human traffickers try to avoid the increased US Border Patrol presence near more-populated regions. While there are regular arrests of human traffickers known as "polleros" along the length of the border it has also been reported by the press that some pollero organizations pay protection money to Mexican law enforcement.

The alleged pollero identified himself as Mario Hernández Vargas, 38 years old, of Phoenix, Arizona. Police say that Hernández had 28 people packed into a van.

The would-be migrants to the US say that Hernández had charged them US$1000 each. Among the group of 28 Mexicans were a three-year old boy, youths ages 14-22 and others between the ages of 28 and 52. Many of the people were relatives, police stated. Most were from the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.

Source: La Crónica, March 12, 2001. Article by Samuel Murillo.

NGO Aid to Migrants Down in Tijuana

The director of the Tijuana Casa del Migrante (Migrants' House), Luis Kendzierski, states that his migrant aid organization has seen a 50% reduction in the number of people that it has helped since 1997.

Over the last three years the center has assisted approximately 5,000 migrants per year. In 1997 Casa del Migrante assisted 10,000 would-be emigrants to the US, said Kendzierski, a Scalabrini-order priest.

Kendzierski believes that the increased US Border Patrol presence has caused the change in migrant flows away from Tijuana and into more remote and inhospitable areas in BC.

Casa del Migrante Tijuana was founded in 1987 with the attention of helping all people that arrive at the border seeking to cross into the US without the proper legal papers.

Kendzierski explained that when people arrive at Casa del Migrante they are first interviewed to learn their case history and depending on their situation they have the right to remain up to 15 days at the center until they can find a job to support themselves.