Piedras Negras/Tijuana.- After Honduran migrant Alex Díaz’s asylum appointment in the United States was canceled following Donald Trump’s offensive against immigration and the reinforcement of border security, the 23-year-old former bus driver began to consider what he had been determined to avoid: entering the United States illegally.
Since Trump ended Joe Biden’s legal entry program at the border and began stepping up border security, Díaz is evaluating the possibility of turning to smugglers to take him further into the United States along isolated routes.
“I didn’t want to enter illegally. But Trump cannot take away the American dream from me,” Díaz told Reuters outside a shelter in the border town of Piedras Negras.
Díaz mentioned that the smugglers charged him $7,000 to get to the Texas city of San Antonio, approximately 235 kilometers away.
Unsure whether his brothers in Louisiana could come up with the money and worried about his safety on potentially dangerous routes, Diaz was still considering whether he would attempt the crossing.
As part of his announced crackdown on migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump on Monday shut down Biden’s CBP One program, which allowed migrants in Mexico to make an appointment to request asylum at a legal border crossing.
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Migrants like Díaz now face more expensive and risky smuggling routes into the United States, according to interviews with a half-dozen migrants, a smuggler and U.S. authorities.
Under the Biden administration, a record number of migrants illegally crossing the border were detained and many were released into the United States with pending immigration court hearings.
Biden implemented asylum restrictions in June 2024, which his officials say contributed in part to a sharp drop in migrant detentions.
The rule changes under Trump, aimed at stopping what he calls an “invasion” at the border, are operating alongside existing restrictions put in place by Biden last year, according to a Trump administration official.
The effect of the overlapping restrictions remained unclear during Trump’s first days in office. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday that the Border Patrol had detained 766 migrants trying to cross illegally the previous day, about half the daily average in December.
A Mexican smuggler, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said prices had increased in part because of more restrictions on the U.S. side.
Business for smugglers
Valeriano Pérez, an investigator with the sheriff’s office in the Texas border county of Maverick, predicted that the cartels would take migrants on riskier routes through the desert and transport them further from the border.
“They have to find a way to get past the checkpoints, to get them to the cities in the north. That makes the job longer for the cartels,” Pérez told Reuters.
As a result, he added, his office, which has a total of about 80 officers and warders, would likely increase patrols in bushland areas and roads. Given the use of more dangerous routes, Pérez said he expected to find more dead migrants.
Read: Mexico’s southern border, the area with the highest perception of insecurity in 2024
Roberto, a trader from southern Mexico who had been waiting in Tijuana for his appointment with CBP One on January 22, is discouraged now that the price smugglers charge to help migrants cross has skyrocketed to 140,000 pesos ($6,900). ), from approximately 85,000 pesos ($4,200).
“Trump has given business back to the smugglers, because people are going to continue crossing no matter what,” said Roberto, 34, who did not want to share his last name out of security concerns.
“I’m going to stay in Tijuana and raise the money to cross,” he added.
Some migrants, discouraged by prices or the risk of stepped-up deportations under Trump once inside the United States, are choosing to stay in Mexico.
But Díaz, the Honduran migrant at the Piedras Negras shelter, says he is determined to reach the United States, in part because he has two young children to support in Honduras.
He missed an asylum appointment earlier this month because, he said, he was kidnapped by a gang in Mexico while riding a bus to the border and beaten for three days until his relatives paid $1,000 to free him.
Now, he’s waiting to hear from friends who crossed the border illegally recently to see if they did well before trying to do it himself.
“I want to cross, but I’m afraid they’ll catch me,” Díaz said.
With information from Reuters
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