However, it's not just the price that's gone up — so has the risk of losing your life.
Posted on 05/20/2007 7:03:41 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Every day, smugglers guide hundreds of undocumented immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. Coyotes are now charging more than ever for the trip.
However, it's not just the price that's gone up — so has the risk of losing your life.
Freeways and back roads are the battlefields.
"They will shoot, attempt to stop a vehicle," said Alonzo Peña, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They are armed bandits who stake out these areas, smuggling routes that lead from the border to cities like Tucson, Ariz.
"They don't want to take the risk of smuggling the load themselves," Peña said.
The load is undocumented immigrants. Once across the border, they're kidnapped by rival smugglers and then held for ransom in stash houses.
"The conditions are very inhumane and almost border on terroristic-type treatment for these people," Peñ said.
Immigrants know they're pawns in this fight for profit. One man told KENS 5 he was in a group squeezed into a speeding pickup driven by their smuggler. When they were stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol instead of another smuggler, he was relieved.
Tighter border security has spawned the deadly competition among smugglers.
"They have their own informant network. Sometimes, they even embed an alien in a load to be smuggled in, and then call them and tell them where they're located," Peña said.
The sophistication and frequency of the incidents is growing. So far this year, the bandits known as bajadores are suspected in at least 70 cases in Arizona, including 8 deaths.
There's also evidence the crime is spreading. Police say it's the likely motive for a freeway shootout in Houston last month. Four people were injured. One died after he was shot in the head and run over.
Since this is a crime of opportunity, investigators are concerned that innocent bystanders who have nothing to do with the smuggling trade could be targeted — that some of these rip-off crews might start shooting at vehicles, simply because they appear to be carrying a large number of people who could be immigrants.
And now, more of the immigrants who believe they're on the road to a better life, know it can abruptly end in death.
Oh, so now it's the BP's fault.
Just like every drug user knows that drugs should be legal for the same reason, and no one has a right to interfere with what we do.
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However, it's not just the price that's gone up — so has the risk of losing your life.
Ping))!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Read it and weap.
Everything’s fine, nothing to see here folks, move along,move along. Oh, and for you people who’s wife is raped, daughter killed on the highway at the rate of 25 a day, please come and get your freak’n kin’s corpse. They’re plugging up the coroners office and there will be a $150 fee after two days, payable in advance, cash only. Pickup hours 1:00PM to 3:00PM, MWF. Have a nice day.
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