The United States government continues to warn about the efforts of traffickers – or coyotes– who seek to take advantage of the need of migrants, especially now that it could come to an end Title 42the measure implemented by the US health authorities in order to curb coronavirus infections.
“They are creating an idea that at the end of Title 42, which was a public order due to the pandemic, that immigration regulations are simply not going to be applied and that is not the case, US immigration laws are still in force,” he told the voice of america Luis Miranda, deputy commissioner for the US Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP).
Last week CBP launched a campaign titled ‘Say no to the coyote’in which he warns about illegal actions in human trafficking.
Miranda explained how the entity has observed that “smugglers cheat people, put them in great danger”, for their own benefit through extortion. “In many cases they lead to death,” she laments.
Some of the material published by the CBP also warns about misleading advertising through social networks, including WhatsApp, that tries to capture the attention of migrants.
“Asylum in the US is very limited, it does not apply to anyone who is fleeing generalized violence, it does not apply for economic reasons,” Miranda stresses to VOA.
The alert is aimed mainly at those who try to reach the country irregularly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, a region known as the Northern Triangle of Central America.
The journeys to which migrants undergo they are dangerousand the lack of scruples of the traffickers takes precedence over the very lives of the people, says the expert in human trafficking, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera.
“Sometimes, for example, there are links between human trafficking networks and coyotes, sometimes they charge them a fee, but on the other hand they also have links with botaneros, with prostitution centers. […] They bring more and more people and they don’t mind bringing hundreds of people in a truck, dozens of people in a place where there are many fewer people,” he said in statements to VOA.
Federal immigration authorities detain some 7,000 migrants a day when they try to cross the border from Mexico, but the government estimates that number could reach 18,000 a day after Title 42 expires, scheduled for May 23.
Currently, however, US federal Judge Robert Summerhays is weighing arguments over whether the White House will be able to lift pandemic-related restrictions on schedule.
* VOA reporter Laura Sepúlveda from Texas contributed to this report.
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