Smugglers are turning to social media to recruit kids to drive illegal immigrants — including some who were just 13 years old, the Border Patrol revealed.
The cartels dangle big paydays in front of the kids and assure them that because they’re juveniles, they won’t face severe consequences if they’re caught. The kids are also told that if they flee, agents will give up if a high-speed car chase becomes too risky for others on the road.
The result is a wave of inexperienced drivers taking huge risks, engaging in high-speed evasions and driving into oncoming traffic, the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector said in a new warning Wednesday.
“This is an alarming trend because many of these teenagers underestimate the severity of the crime,” said Brian S. Hastings, chief patrol agent for the sector.
Part of the problem is the smuggling organizations are right — the juveniles generally won’t face criminal consequences, according to Reymundo Del Bosque, the sheriff in Zapata County, Texas.
“Our juveniles are the ones driving, the ones in car chases, because the federal government is not charging them at all,” he told The Washington Times earlier this week. “We have juveniles driving through our town, and trafficking, being solicited through social media to pick up the bodies.”
The use of social media to advertise to entice would-be illegal immigrants to make the journey to the U.S. has been well-documented.
Less prominent is the role the apps play in helping the smuggling organizations themselves. It helps recruit foot guides to sneak migrants over the border, stash house operators to hold them while they pay off fees and wait for a good chance to bust through the ring of Border Patrol highway checkpoints near the border, and drivers to get them deeper into the U.S.
Juveniles are often used to shuttle migrants near the border. Sheriff Del Bosque said the kids will drive migrants who crossed the Rio Grande into his county up to a drop-off location like a Whataburger or H-E-B store in Laredo.
Then it’s usually an adult who will take over, driving the migrants through the Border Patrol checkpoints to San Antonio, where they disperse throughout the country.
The adults, too, are recruited online.
The Times has tracked hundreds of cases of adult smugglers where social media was used.
A deep dive into records from Arizona found 68% of cases showed the use of apps to facilitate the smuggling journey.
Smugglers use a wide array of platforms, with Facebook, Snapchat and WhatsApp the most common platforms, though TikTok, Telegram and Craigslist have also popped up on a database of border smuggling cases that The Times maintains.
And once recruited, they stay in touch with the smuggling outfits, or Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) in government-speak, through many of those same apps. The TCOs share intelligence about Border Patrol movements and pickup and drop-off locations.
In one case last year, a woman told agents she was recruited by answering a Craigslist ad, worked for three different smugglers and communicated using WhatsApp or Messenger. She had made six runs, only two of which had been successful, and was paid a total of $2,000 for those, according to court documents.
The woman, who already had a list of DUI, drug and petty theft convictions, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact and was sentenced to a year of probation.
In Arizona, the Border Patrol reported smugglers using chatrooms associated with online video games to recruit kids to drive.
Agents say social media helps the smugglers expand their network of drivers.
The border surge has meant a surfeit of “customers,” and the smuggling operations are desperate for people to guide them across the border, keep them in stash houses and drive them deeper into the country.
A typical payment for a Mexican migrant is $8,000 to $10,000, while a typical payment for someone from the key Central American countries runs to about $12,000.
Drivers usually collect a fraction of that, though, as The Times has reported, the money can pile up.
Truckers who carry massive loads — sometimes 100 or more migrants — through checkpoints can earn $20,000 a trip, while others who smuggle regularly without getting caught can also cash in.
The Times last year revealed one woman made $200,000 in 10 months, making runs twice a week.