How Mexican Cartels Control the Flow of Migrants to the US Border | News, Sports, Work

Venezuelan migrant Lisbeth Contreras hugs her children as she crosses the Suchiate River, which marks the border between Guatemala and Mexico, from Tekun Umani, Guatemala, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (AP) — The first place many migrants spend the night after entering Mexico from Guatemala is a large, roof-top, fenced-in building on a rural ranch. They call it “henhouse” and they can’t leave until they pay off the cartel that runs it.

The number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has hit a four-year low, but just days before the U.S. election, where immigration is a key issue, migrants continue to pour into Mexico.

While US authorities credit their Mexican counterparts with stemming the flow to their shared border, organized crime maintains tighter controls on who moves here than a handful of federal agents and National Guardsmen standing by the river.

Kidnapped migrants who pay a $100 ransom for their release have a stamp to signal that they have paid. Between January and August, in this southernmost corner of Mexico alone, immigration agents intercepted more than 150,000 migrants, believed to be only part of the flow.

Six migrant families interviewed by The Associated Press who went through the initial abduction and were held pending payment explained how it works. A Mexican federal official confirmed much of this. All of them wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

Honduran migrant Herzon Zavala exchanges Guatemalan quetzals for Mexican pesos after crossing the Suchiate River, which marks the border between Guatemala and Mexico, from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Mexican immigration agents had detected 925,000 undocumented migrants through August of this year, well above last year’s annual total and triple the number in 2021. Still, they deported only 16,500, a tiny fraction of previous years.

The Rev. Heyman Vazquez, a priest in Ciudad Hidalgo along the Suchiate River that separates Mexico and Guatemala, sees it every day.

“They (the cartel) decide who passes and who doesn’t.” Vasquez said. “The number of migrants they accept every day is high, and they do it in full view of the authorities.”

Pay to continue north

On Monday morning, Luis Alonso Valle, a 43-year-old Honduran man traveling with his wife and two children, disembarked from a raft held together by cameras and planks of a truck that was transporting them through Suchiate to Mexico.

Venezuelan migrant Erika Arias waits with her family outside a shelter in Tapachula, Mexico, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

They hadn’t gone 50 yards into Ciudad Hidalgo when three men on a motorcycle pulled up to tell them they couldn’t keep going. Then, seeing the journalists, they left. The family looked scared.

In the central plaza of Ciudad Hidalgo, Valle asked for a van that could take them 23 miles (37 kilometers) to Tapachula, considered the main entry point into southern Mexico. After climbing aboard, the driver whispered to the journalists to stop recording. “They (organized crime) are going to stop me” he said.

This is often how migrants arrive at the ranch. Taxi or minibus drivers working for the cartel take them there and hand them over. They are forced to sleep on the ground.

“There were more than 500 people there, some had been there for 10-15 days,” said a Venezuelan woman who was freed Sunday with her husband and two children. “He who has no money stays, and he who decides to pay leaves.” she said.

A 28-year-old baker from Ecuador was taken to a bank to withdraw money to free himself, his wife, daughter and four other relatives. His family was the insurance against his return.

Venezuelan migrant Eyla Fonseca feeds breakfast to her son Keylert Velos at the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tekun Uman, Guatemala, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

After paying, migrants are photographed, and a stamp is placed on their skin.

Armed men stop vans and taxis heading to Tapachula and check for stamps. Those who do not have them are sent back. The migrants said that once they got to Tapachula, they were told to wash them off to avoid trouble with other gangs.

According to the Fray Matias de Cordova NGO in Tapachula, at least one-third of the hundreds of migrants they have served this year have arrived with stamps. Director Enrique Vidal Olascoaga said those who cannot pay are often sexually assaulted.

None of the families interviewed by the AP said they had been harmed.

An official familiar with the migrants’ statements to investigators said more than 100 migrants freed by security forces in Ciudad Hidalgo in September, as well as a group of several dozen migrants shot by soldiers on Oct. 1, went through similar kidnapping and extortion scenarios.

Honduran migrant Luis Alonso Valle, center, sits in a car on his way to Tapachula from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, after crossing the Suchiate River with his family from Guatemala, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Cartel-controlled border

The tight control of organized crime on Mexico’s southern border has been accompanied by an increase in violence fueled by the struggle between the New Generation Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels. The state of Chiapas is just one of their battlegrounds, but it is key to controlling human, drug and arms smuggling routes from Central America. According to experts, migrants have become the most profitable commodity.

The increasingly aggressive presence of the cartels is becoming an obstacle for organizations trying to help migrants. Earlier this month, gunmen killed an outspoken Catholic priest in Chiapas. And Vidal said that sometimes groups prevent migrants from receiving humanitarian aid.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said the government is dealing with violence but refuses to confront the cartels. It appears to be following a tactic pioneered under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration to ferry migrants from the north back to the south, depleting their resources and keeping them away from the US border, exposing them to new kidnappings and extortion.

Ciudad Hidalgo Mayor Elmer Vázquez said he knew nothing about safe houses for migrants working in the area, and said his city always looks out for migrants.

But the Rev. Vazquez (no relation to the mayor), who has spent two decades advocating for migrants, said prosecutors, the National Guard, the special prosecutor for crimes against migrants do nothing even when crimes are reported.

“They collude with organized crime and, of course, make it look like they’re doing their job.” he said.

A race against time

In August, the U.S. government expanded access to CBP One, the online portal used to make an asylum appointment at the border south of Chiapas. Mexico asked for the move to ease pressure on migrants who have to travel north to make appointments.

This was followed by the inauguration of the Mexican government “mobility corridors” to help migrants with appointments at CBP One travel safely from southern Mexico to the US border. Designation is only the first step, but most applicants are allowed to wait for a lengthy process within the US

But between Sept. 9 and Oct. 11, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said it transported only 846 migrants from Tapachula to the northern border. Others who traveled alone said they were extorted by Mexican authorities and kidnapped — again — by cartels near the northern border, forcing them to miss meetings.

Donald Trump has announced that he will cancel CBP One and close other legal routes to enter the United States

In Tapachula on Tuesday, hundreds of migrants with confirmed CBP One appointments waited outside Mexican immigration agency offices for permits that would allow them to travel north.

Jason Ukely, a 28-year-old from Honduras, slept outside the office to make sure he was first in line when it opened. He was traveling alone but planned to reunite with his sister in New Orleans.

To have any chance of doing so, he would have to reach the border between Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, by Nov. 6 for an appointment at CBP One. He planned to fly from Tapachula to the northern city of Monterrey and then take a bus to Matamoros.

He was worried about not being able to make it in time, but he was happy to get an appointment, “because Donald Trump will come and get rid of (them)” he said.