"Leaving my son destroyed me," Cruz said this month, speaking from the Guatemalan-Mexican border as she headed south towards Honduras. She said her son was with relatives in Texas."The last thing he said was 'let me go to study, work so I can help you'."
Reuters spoke to over a dozen self-identified smugglers in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador to gain insight into how and why so many unaccompanied minors are moving through the region and crossing the border alone. All requested anonymity or nicknames in order to freely discuss the illegal industry.
More than half the smugglers consulted said they had transported unaccompanied minors in recent weeks, moving them by bus, car, boat and even by plane, which one well-connected smuggler called his network's"faster new method" to bring children up from Central America. A White House spokesperson said last month that Biden's approach was to deal with immigration"comprehensively, fairly and humanely" and not to expel unaccompanied children who arrive at U.S. borders.Many children that the U.S. government classifies as"unaccompanied" actually travel with other family members – cousins, uncles, or older siblings.
After moving the children across Mexico by bus, he kept them in his own home near the U.S. border, where his wife and older daughter helped care for them until it was time for him to cross them into Texas and turn them over to U.S. border agents.Vazquez said the cartel that controls the territory along the border in his region mandates that he and other smugglers use the migrant children as a decoy for the cartel's own drug smuggling operations.
"They send their kids with someone they know, who has already transported other family members," he said. Internal Mexican government assessments reviewed by Reuters also state that smugglers have been flying migrants directly to the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, or even into Houston, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona.