Trump Immigration Policy Causes Rise In Human Smuggling At Border
Source: Newsweek Magazine
BY NICOLE RODRIGUEZ ON 12/20/17 AT 10:36 AM
Human smuggling is on the rise because of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, experts believe.
People seeking to escape poverty and dangerous conditions in their homelands are increasingly hiring human smugglers to help usher them across the U.S. border and evade capture by the Trump administration’s immigration agents amid the president's immigration crackdown. It's common to see a rise in this alarming practice when a country enacts more aggressive immigration policies or threatens mass deportations.
"Smuggling is a reaction to border controls rather than a cause of migration in itself," said a report by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, a research center in the U.K. "Ironically, further toughening of border controls will therefore force migrants and refugees to take more risks and only increase their reliance on smugglers." Along the U.S.-Mexico border, the smugglers are known as “coyotes.”
“No migrant feels they can make the journey without a coyote, without a professional or a specialist who knows the routes and has paid off all the people along the way,” said Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy organization. “The smuggler has sort of this huge market advantage because they can claim despite the crackdown, they can still get them through successfully.”
Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/trump-immigration-policy-causes-rise-human-smuggling-border-753212
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