The number of migrants crossing the southern border of the United States has become a campaign issue ahead of the upcoming presidential elections in that country. And although there is a lot of talk about the subject, less is known about the role that drug cartels play in the dangerous journey through Mexico.
With their clubs stripteaseits taco stands and the bustle of motorcycles, San Luis Río Colorado represents the typical image of Mexican border communities.
In a migrant shelter, a stone’s throw from the imposing rust-red fence that separates the Mexican city from Arizona, in the US, Eduardo rests on a shady patio.
On one wall there is a large wooden cross. It is in this safe space where Eduardo began to process and recover from his terrifying experience in Mexico.
Eduardo, in his 50s, used to run a fast food restaurant in Ecuador. But organized crime has grown increasingly stronger in his former, largely peaceful home.
“They extorted us,” he says. Eduardo was threatened with death if he did not pay a “tax” to the gang. “What could he do? “I had to leave to save my life.”
Eduardo never wanted to migrate, but he was afraid and decided to go to the United States to ask for asylum.
His story is that of thousands of people from many parts of the world who flee violence and seek a new life in the United States.
After a record number of arrivals in late 2023, US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, proposed stricter immigration measures that include closing the border when it is overwhelmed.
His opponent in the November election, Republican Donald Trump, says that if elected he will introduce mass deportations.
But what has remained largely under the radar in the debate over mass migration to the United States is the role of Mexico’s deadly drug trafficking organizations.
Eduardo began his trip by flying from the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, to Mexico City. He then boarded a bus north to Sonoyta, on the border with the United States, a trip of more than 30 hours.
The passengers were a mix of migrants and Mexicans. But what Eduardo didn’t know is that his journey would take him through territory controlled by some of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels and their associates, who dominate the migration business.
The first time they stopped the bus was early, around 6 in the morning. Ten armed men wearing balaclavas came on board.
The bus was driven off the road into the mountains. The men asked to see everyone’s papers. Once they established who the migrants were, they asked each of them for $1,500 pesos (US$90) or they would be detained.
The migrants gathered almost all their cash, they were missing $200 pesos (US$12). The men made them get off, but 11 hours after being detained, the bus was able to continue on its way.
San Luis Río Colorado, the border city where Eduardo was recovering at the migrant shelter, has also gained a reputation for kidnapping migrants.
Kidnapped
In May last year, neighbors of a modern two-story house on the outskirts of the city reported unusual comings and goings.
When Mexican authorities entered the building, five people were arrested and more than 100 migrants were released. Some of them had been confined in the house for three weeks.
“They had no food or water and they were physically and psychologically abused,” says Teresa Flores Muñoz, a local police officer who participated in the operation.
Remember a woman from India. She “she was crying and holding her baby. She pushed him towards me and told me to take him away because they were going to kill him. “It was a really desperate situation.”
Twenty-three nationalities were represented among the captives, including people from Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, China, Mauritania and Senegal.
According to local reports, the kidnappers demanded US$2,500 from each migrant and double that from pregnant women.
If migrants don’t have the money, the gangs demand it from their relatives, either at home or north of the border in the United States.
These extortioners and kidnappers are not only professional criminals: some are also law enforcement officers.
As their bus continued north through the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora, Eduardo says they were stopped at six police checkpoints where officers demanded money.
“If you didn’t have cash, they called you. They told you ‘take off your pants, take off your clothes’, and you have to give them everything, like your suitcase. If you didn’t have money they would take your papers, that’s how I lost some documents.”
Hitmen and drug traffickers
Attacks of this type on buses with migrants are not unusual.
In San Luis Río Colorado, we worked with a local Mexican journalist. After dropping us off, he sent us photographs, taken secretly, of the bus ride home of him being detained by gang members with their faces covered.
“Everyone on the bus knew that they were hitmen for the drug trafficking and migrant trafficking mafia,” he said.
The masked men only questioned people they suspected were not Mexican: those dressed in a humble manner and with fearful faces. The five or six migrants who got off the bus were extorted up to US$50 each.
On the door of the men’s truck you could see the logo of an agency of the Sonora State Prosecutor’s Office – AMIC (Ministerial Agency for Criminal Investigations). Our journalist colleague believes it was false.
Eduardo’s most harrowing experience on his journey from Mexico City north to the border also occurred in the state of Sonora, about three hours from Sonoyta.
Once again, the bus was stopped by armed men. And, because there was not enough cash to hand over, two Colombian families, including five children, were forced to get off the bus. They put them on a truck and took them away.
“We didn’t have enough money to save everyone,” says Eduardo, his voice breaking.
There came a time when I had no money. His $3,000 savings were gone. This meant that he could not pay a “coyote” or human smuggler in Sonoyta to help him cross the border illegally into the US.
The bus driver told Eduardo that he risked being kidnapped if he stayed there, and instead dropped him off in San Luis Río Colorado, where Eduardo headed to the migrant shelter.
A bullet in the head
Kidnapped migrants, or those who refuse to pay the gunmen, may face a terrible fate.
West of the border, the Mexican city of Tijuana has for decades been a departure point for people entering the United States irregularly.
And recently, bodies of migrants have been found in the hills in the east of the city, shot in the head, execution style.
It is believed that they were people who tried to reach US soil without paying a “coyote” or the criminal group that controls that part of the border.
What is evident is that the cartels have diversified their economic activities to include extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking, says Victor Clark Alfaro, a professor at San Diego State University.
“I call them ‘narcocoyotes’ because they not only cross people, but they also cross drugs into the United States,” he says, adding that even migrants can be forced to carry narcotics with them.
In Tijuana, the Sinaloa cartel controls groups of human traffickers and so does the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.
“Violence is one of the key elements of organized crime,” says Clark. “Violence is used to control their own territories and against innocent people.”
In San Luis Río Colorado, Eduardo rested, felt better and got a local job. After his journey from hell through Mexico, he decided not to risk crossing illegally into the United States with a “coyote.”
Instead, he signed up for a free online U.S. government app called CBP One, which allows migrants to schedule an appointment at a point of entry into the United States.
If they pass security, they are allowed to enter the United States and work while they wait for an immigration hearing. This is one of the Biden administration’s measures designed to dilute the power of the cartels.
Two things kept Eduardo focused on getting to the United States. One is his Catholic faith. The other, very unpleasant news from Ecuador about a friend who, like Eduardo, was being extorted by criminals.
Eduardo had wanted the two to travel north together. But his friend didn’t want to leave the family: he told Eduardo that he would fix things with the gang. He could not.
“The men went to my friend’s store. They killed him there,” says Eduardo through tears. “So if I had stayed in Ecuador… Well, I thank God… I have suffered, but I am still alive.”
In March, Eduardo entered the United States legally.
*BBC photos by Tim Mansel.
Beam click here to read more stories from BBC News Mundo.
You can also follow us on Youtube, instagram, TikTok, x, Facebook and in our new whatsapp channelwhere you’ll find breaking news and our best content.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and activate them.
- The controversial law with which Texas intends to arrest and deport undocumented migrants who arrive in the United States.
- “They kidnap us and steal our appointment with Immigration in the US”: the new modality of the Mexican cartels to extort migrants at the border
- The inhospitable desert in California where the US abandons migrants who manage to cross the border