Human smugglers using El Paso hotels to stash migrants
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — The human smuggler networks operating on this side of the border are using local hotels to stash hundreds of migrants after crossing illegally into the country from Mexico in an attempt to avoid getting caught.
A human smuggler granted ABC-7 exclusive access to a hotel room where he was stashing four young migrants from Guatemala. The group had crossed the border through Sunland Park hours before and said they were heading to North Carolina.
“To get across the border wall we used ropes to go up and down. Once on the ground we had to run and look for a place to hide before someone picked us up,” one of the migrants said.
The migrants said they had to pay 185,000 pesos each (roughly $9,500) to be taken from Chiapas, in southern Mexico, to Albuquerque, from where they would then travel by bus to their final destination.
“We want to work, we have family that are waiting for us there [in North Carolina] to give us job in construction,” the migrant said.
In order to gather the money, the migrants had to sell all that they had back in Guatemala.
“We sold our land where we harvested coffee, and our houses too. It is very difficult to make money there (in Guatemala). We earn 150 pesos a day (around $8). We have been gathering money for three years,” the migrant said.
The smuggler who took them across the border and stashed them in the El Paso hotel shared details on the whole operation and how they work side by side with Mexican drug cartels.
"I would get a call letting me know that there’s gonna be x amount, now there aren’t that many, it has slowed down a lot, three people max, and they’ll send me locations in the middle of the night with the locations to pick them up,” the smuggler said.
The smuggler said he tries to treat his cargo well. He brings them food, water, and new clothes. It is a crucial part of his job. He wants to treat people humanely. If they look clean and well-fed, they are more likely to pass as family members when going through check points.
“Sometimes they are sitting right next to me, acting as if they were my family and we just go through.”
This is how, according to the human smuggler, they manage to pass the border patrol checkpoints going north.
New data shows El Paso is the third most active border sector in terms of illegal crossings. Border Patrol in the El Paso sector are encountering 949 migrants a day, according to the latest figures from the City of El Paso.
Luis Chaparro is ABC-7's reporter for the Puente News Collaborative, a partnership among local media outlets bringing in-depth border reporting to the Borderland.
