Ruthless human smugglers are charging migrants up to $40,000 for a passage into America under Donald Trump’s watchful eye – nearly triple the amount they were charging during the Biden administration.
El Paso, Texas is once again the #1 hot spot for border crossings into the US, even though the number of migrants sneaking into the US has plummeted.
Across the entire US-Mexico border, 264 people a day are crossing illegally and about 52 of them are doing so in the El Paso Sector, which includes Texas’s sixth largest city and all of New Mexico, the US Border Patrol reported in its March encounters.
Under Trump, getting into El Paso is harder than ever- meaning the only way in is through cartel human smugglers who are charging double and triple than they were under.
A VIP package is now setting some back $40,000-a-head.
In this part of the border, three cartels run the show: La Linea, La Impresa and the Sinaloa Cartel, Border Patrol explained as DailyMail.com toured the region last week.
No one crosses into the US without paying a smuggler since Trump took over, the Border Patrol explained.
‘We’ve made it a lot more difficult for them to make illegal entry into the United States,’ agent Carlos David Antúnez said.
Despite the recent crackdown from Trump, the trafficking of humans on the US-Mexico border is estimated to be at least a $13 billion a year enterprise.
‘It’s not going to stop. It’s a business. It’s a money-maker for them, so it’s going to continue,’ Antúnez added.
In fact, the recent layers of security on the border to stop illegal immigration has only driven border traffic underground even more.
Migrants, who under Biden had crossed the border for free and asked for asylum while surrendering to border agents, are now paying soulless cartels who can get them in under Trump.
Just across the border in Mexico, a self-proclaimed smuggler explained the going-rate for entry into the US.
‘You used to make $300 to $700 a person by crossing people,’ Augustine, 18, told DailyMail.com, explaining that was his cut, not the total price paid by the migrant to the cartel.
‘It’s $700 for pregnant women or kids, since they need more help getting over. The more help you have to give them, the more money it costs. For men, it was $300.
Now, it’s double or triple that.’
Augustine, who lives in one of Ciudad Juarez’s poorest neighborhoods and cartel hotbeds, Rancho Anapra, said he got into smuggling because he was using drugs at the time and needed the cash.
He requested we not show his face to avoid angering his former bosses.
When asked how they’re able to get around all the security on the US, he walked us through the ‘tricks’ they used.
‘There are places in the border wall that look normal, but they have been cut. All you have to do is move a piece out of place and someone can squeeze through,’ he detailed.
‘A lot of times we wait for the train to go by and use it as cover to sneak in. You know, we have our tricks. When you can, you blend in. There’s a factory (on the US side of of the border.) We wait for work to let out and just assimilate with the crowd.’
On his phone, he showed us routes used by smugglers to get in and pick up spots where drivers in the US are waiting to ferry the migrants to their next destination.
The routes he showed DailyMail.com match up with places Border Patrol confirmed to be well known smuggling corridors.
‘There’s a guaranteed way in, too– the tunnels. That’s a sure thing so that’s $40,000. It used to cost $20,000,’ he shared of the amount each migrants pays smugglers.
Augustine referred to El Paso’s public sewage system, which is often exploited by the criminals to traffic migrants, even through the waterways are obviously not meant for humans.
Water can be released at any time, drowning the migrants.
Additionally, coyotes (smuggling guides) often abandon the foreigners in the dark passages without maps or tools to get out.
In January, authorities unearthed a secret tunnel on the Mexican side that had been used to sneak migrants in right under the noses of Border Patrol agents in El Paso.
Measuring six feet high by four feet wide, the 1,000 foot corridor had lighting, ventilation and had been reinforced in case of collapse.
Weeks after its discovery, the opening was filled with concrete, shutting down that route for cartels.
But others will pop up, Augustine quipped.
‘No president will ever stop smuggling. There is too much money at stake,’ he said.
However, the steps taken by Trump’s administration has made an undeniable difference.
During the Biden years, El Paso became ground zero for the border crisis, peaking in December 2023 when 55,769 migrants crossed into the city in one month, according to federal statistics.
At the time, most of the entries will Venezuelans and other asylum seekers who illegally crossed the border, looked for a Border Patrol agent and gave themselves up.
Once they were taken into custody, many invoked their legal right to seek asylum, trigger a process that allowed many to be released into the country.
Additionally, others were released into the US due to overcrowding at Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.
Even through border crossings have been falling for the last six months, several new security measures have been added to make entry over the international border even more difficult.
Aside from Border Patrol agents, migrants must also get passed members of the military who are now working in tandem with the federal officers.
New Normandy barriers have been added to Mt. Cristo Rey, once a favorite route for smugglers.
The more treacherous crossing means most of the migrants crossing now are single men or women.
Families with small children, who became a heart-breaking reality of the migration surge during the Biden years, are mostly gone.
‘A lot of them have criminal histories here in the United States as they’ve been deported and they’re trying to get back into that city where they’re living at,’ Antúnez stated.
Border Patrol knows it’s just a matter of time before the cartels become more aggressive in trying to successfully move migrants into the US.
‘They’re starting to get desperate because we’ve made it a lot more difficult for them. A lot of them will assault agents to get those illegals in,’ he said.
But perhaps the biggest difference and deterrent on the border is that almost every migrant who crosses now is sent back to Mexico or their country of origin.
Border Patrol stopped a young Honduran couple who had crossed in the morning we patrolled the border with them.
The woman fell as she was running from agents, splitting her lip open and leaving her face bloodied.
When asked how much they paid smugglers to get in, the couple said they had crossed without the help of anyone– a lie Border Patrol told us, telling us migrants are coached to not disclose information about cartel operations with US law enforcement.
With her blood spewing from her lip, the woman looked distraught knowing they had likely paid smugglers their lives’ savings to get into the country, only to be sent back after getting caught.
‘Once we get people over the border, they’re on their own,’ Augustine told DailyMail.com. ‘Our part is just to get them over the line. If they get caught the second we leave them, it’s on them.’