The High Price of Human Contraband

December 6, 2000 10:18 AM, EST

HOUSTON - Truckers are increasingly finding themselves the targets of smuggling rings that use money and other enticements in attempts to get undocumented immigrants across the border between Mexico and the United States.

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In case after case over the past year, 40 or more people in each incident have been found stuffed into trailers, hoping to elude detection by border authorities as they attempted to make their way into the U.S. Sometimes they are uncovered by happenstance; other times by undercover work.

Investigators contend that it is now more profitable to transport undocumented aliens than to transport illegal drugs. The U.S. Border Patrol reported catching more than 1.54 million people entering the country illegally in the first 11 months of fiscal 2000, compared with 1.43 million during the same time span in 1999. The agency notes that about 12,000 people are apprehended annually along the 3,987-mile northern border with Canada, with the vast majority of undocumented immigrants attempting to enter the United States across its southern perimeter.

In late September, a driver traveling north on Interstate 35 in Texas saw the door of a trailer in front of him crack open long enough for a hand to flick a cigarette butt across the highway. A 911 call and 30 minutes later, local deputies pulled over the suspicious tractor-trailer. Inside were 43 illegal immigrants — 27 men, 12 women and four boys under the age of 17.

For the full story, see the Dec. 4 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.