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iCoyote: How Snapchat broke the U.S. border
The Washington Times ^ | September 25, 2019 | Stephen Dinan

Posted on 10/16/2019 8:34:18 AM PDT by re_tail20

Pedro Sanchez-Garay worked as an Uber driver in Southern California, but he got evicted from his apartment and the money wasn’t rolling in fast enough. So he figured he would broaden his pool of riders.

He answered a request on social media for some off-the-books driving — of illegal immigrants.

Instructions for each pickup were provided over WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service run by Facebook. He was promised $1,000 a pop to pick them up just after they crossed the border and drive them north deeper into the interior.

It’s the gig economy of the border, or as one observer termed it, iCoyote. Now anyone can become a border smuggler simply by responding to an online ad. The who, what, when and where can be exchanged over cellphones with WhatsApp or Snapchat, and sending a GPS “pin” location can connect the driver to migrants, even in the remote southwestern desert.

The cartels that control the border post scouts, who call drivers with real-time updates on where the Border Patrol is and, more important, where agents are not. Knowing whether a highway checkpoint is closed can make the difference between a successful smuggling run or a trip to jail.

Even the foot guides, dubbed “coyotes,” who traditionally lead migrants through the Arizona and California deserts or around Border Patrol checkpoints deeper into the interior, are being replaced. Now migrants leaving Mexico are handed phones and told to follow a GPS map or to dial a scout for instructions to their pickup location on the U.S. side.

“The internet itself is being used for human smuggling, and I don’t think the criminal element has really touched the surface,” said Victor M. Manjarrez Jr., former chief agent of the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector and now associate director at the University of Texas at...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: aliens; border; immigration; smuggling

1 posted on 10/16/2019 8:34:18 AM PDT by re_tail20
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To: re_tail20

The internet itself is being used for human smuggling,

Should we be Prosecuting it’s Inventor, Al Gore, for Human Smuggling??


2 posted on 10/16/2019 8:37:24 AM PDT by eyeamok
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To: re_tail20

wet-foot, dry-foot
Time to call Uber!


3 posted on 10/16/2019 8:37:34 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym explains the science.)
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To: re_tail20
sending a GPS “pin” location can connect the driver to migrants, even in the remote southwestern desert.

If we had a competent FBI they would deter this by the use of the sting, air false ads, ping the driver, have the fbi agent get into the car, arrest the driver for illegal activity, word gets out and people don't participate any longer.

4 posted on 10/16/2019 8:38:14 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: re_tail20

Wonder if the militia groups can do something about this?

Since no troops at the border are stopping this, we need militia groups to help stop the invasion.


5 posted on 10/16/2019 8:45:19 AM PDT by Cedar
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To: KC_Lion; SkyDancer; Sarah Barracuda

Ping.


6 posted on 10/16/2019 8:45:57 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: re_tail20

This doesn’t appear to meet the definition of cross-border smuggling. The drivers are in the united states, and are picking up people in the US and taking them to other places in the US.

The people they are picking up are illegal immigrants who have just crossed the border — but i bet there are illegal immigrants using Uber and Lyft every day, as well as taxis, and public transportation.

I don’t think anybody in the service industry is allowed to ask a person if they are illegal before they provide services.

So the question I have — do we have a federal law that makes it a crime to pick up a person IN THE UNITED STATES that you know is here illegally, and drive them to another place in the united states?


7 posted on 10/16/2019 9:12:55 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Army Air Corps

HELP!!!! I use Firefox and this morning I got this instead of Free Republic:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/MK_VfUErRaY?autoplay=1

It’s like something took over the site. What happened??? I’m on Explorer now.


8 posted on 10/16/2019 9:20:35 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~ Eat Sleep Fly Repeat ~)
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To: CharlesWayneCT

“knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law;...”

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title8-section1324&num=0&edition=prelim

It is illegal, in fact helping illegals in pretty much any way is illegal. At this point I am wondering why most of the dim politicians are not sitting in jail just for this type of thing.

I know of people here on the border that have been charged and convicted of transporting illegals inside the US and are indeed in prison right now.

We have the laws to deal with all of this, we need to start getting serious about using those laws more often.


9 posted on 10/17/2019 3:20:48 PM PDT by Tammy8
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