The migrants are transported in small groups from the river to a stash house. They wait until it's their turn to be gathered up into a group and taken across the checkpoint. To minimize suspicion, smugglers often recruit Americans who they believe border agents will wave through. The American coyotes are certainly part of a system that has been influenced by the cartel along the way.
Migrants looking to enter the US from Mexico illegally often pay thousands of dollars to “coyotes,” or smugglers who transport them across the border. Once inside the US, they’re hidden in trailers or the trunks of cars to get past highway checkpoints where law enforcement is on the lookout.
That’s where a largely hidden workforce comes in — people in the US, many of them citizens, who are recruited by smuggling operations to drive the vehicles through the checkpoints, hoping to avoid detection. Often these drivers are themselves barely getting by, and they risk time in federal prison if they’re caught.
Reporter Julia Love, who wrote about this shadow economy for Bloomberg Businessweek, joins this episode to tell the story of one of those drivers–a Texan named Dennis Wilson. Wilson also comes on the podcast to describe his experience–and to tell what happened when he was pulled over early one morning.
Read Julia Love’s story: https://bloom.bg/3kNxlRI
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