By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Stephen Marroquin-Mendez was stuffed inside a cabinet in the cab of a semitruck when authorities found him. The cabinet was latched from the outside, so he could not free himself.
The illegal immigrant from El Salvador told agents from the Department of Homeland Security last week that he had paid $8,500 to be floated across the Rio Grande and into Texas, owed $8,500 more once he reached Houston and would head to Virginia, where he was to meet up with an aunt living there.
His $17,000 price tag has become standard for illegal immigrants as smuggling cartels adapt to President Trump’s border shutdown.
Mexican migrants, who usually pay the lowest rates, now shell out $10,000 apiece. Prices as high as $16,000 are not unusual, according to The Washington Times’ database of border smuggling cases.
Central American migrants regularly pay $16,000 to $17,000, though some tell Border Patrol agents that they were to pay $30,000 or more to be helped across the border and taken deeper into the U.S.
A Chinese couple whom Customs and Border Protection officers found hidden in a Hyundai Tucson as it crossed the border from Mexico said they paid $45,000 apiece.
Mr. Trump’s range of actions has transformed the border to a point where it is unrecognizable from the heights of the migration surge a little more than a year ago under the Biden administration.
Border Patrol agents once detected more than 10,000 migrants rushing across the border daily. They now have regular days with fewer than 500 encounters.
“Border crossings are down approximately 95%,” Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, told reporters recently. “You talk to agents on the line; in their entire careers, they’ve never seen crossing days as low as what they’re experiencing right now.”
The cartels, which just a few years ago were estimated to be making more money from illegal immigrant traffic than drug smuggling, are on their heels, he said.
“The cartels, in fact, are enormously frustrated because they’ve never seen a clampdown like this in American history,” Mr. Miller said.
Jonathan Fahey, a former federal prosecutor and acting director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Trump administration’s end to catch-and-release has scrambled the economics of smuggling.
Cartels once relied on the generosity of the U.S. government to release migrants and, in some cases, help them reach their final destinations. With Mr. Trump in office, the cartels must avoid detection altogether.
“It’s hard to get in now because you’ve got to be a ‘gotaway,’” Mr. Fahey said. “That’s a lot more challenging.”
Mr. Fahey said he is waiting to see what happens with the prices of drugs, such as fentanyl, that cross the southern border.
The Times’ database covers the past seven years of criminal smuggling cases filed in federal court in border jurisdictions. The data is collected from affidavits filed by federal agents and officers describing what the witnesses — the illegal immigrants who were transported — said during their arrests.
Prices have steadily increased in recent years, though the range of payments in the last six months under President Biden was unusual. Some migrants still paid top dollar, but others reported paying hardly anything. Experts said the cartels were likely charging whatever they thought they could.
Now, the payments are consistently at the higher end.
Josue Minchez-Fuentes of Guatemala, who was deported from the U.S. just after Christmas, tried to sneak back in this month. He agreed to pay a smuggler about $19,300.
Two other Guatemalan migrants in the vehicle with Mr. Minchez told Border Patrol agents they were paying roughly $17,000 apiece.
In late January, agents in Texas encountered Felipe Barreno Ajpuac, a Guatemalan who said he was being charged $30,000 to be smuggled to New York.
Along the California coast, Border Patrol agents were alerted to illegal immigrants who had been dropped off by personal watercraft and were whisked away in a BMW. Agents pursued the vehicle, but the BMW driver escaped.
Agents later spotted the BMW at a motel outside San Diego. After they moved in, they found a Vietnamese man who said he was to pay $16,000 to sneak into the U.S.
Agents working a highway checkpoint Sunday near Laredo, Texas, stopped a Hyundai sedan carrying an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. He told agents he had paid $19,434 to cross the border last month and another $19,434 to get deeper into the U.S., where he figured to make more money.
That works out to more than $38,000 for his journey.
Mr. Fahey said the Trump administration’s determination to bring more criminal cases against smugglers is also a factor.
“It’s a higher risk for the smugglers to get locked up, so you’re going to have to pay them more,” he said.
The Times data suggests cartels have started recruiting smuggling operatives from well beyond the border region.
Elver Eligio Aguilar-Cruz told agents he lived in New Jersey and received a request on Facebook asking him to travel to Arizona to drive people. He arrived, rented a vehicle and received a map pin location to pick up illegal immigrants, according to documents in his court case.
He told agents he didn’t have a firm agreement on pay.
In another case, Luis Vega-Perez told agents he was from the Memphis, Tennessee, area and was recruited on Facebook through a Marketplace ad. He was offered $6,000 to collect three people at the border and drive them to Phoenix.
Social media has become a major recruiting tool for smuggling coordinators, who gravitate toward Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.
Using social media also allows smugglers to recruit juveniles as drivers.
Agents in Texas arrested a 17-year-old boy who picked up illegal immigrants after they climbed the border wall near Laredo. He said he had responded to a social media post asking for drivers, and he was promised $110 for each person he drove.
