US-Mexico Immigration Accord Likely To Increase Demand For Smugglers’ Services

The immigration agreement between Mexico and the United States that averted US tariffs on Mexican imports has a clear beneficiary, experts say: human traffickers.

Under the pact reached Friday night, Mexico will deploy its recently created National Guard along the border with Guatemala, as well as dismantle groups that smuggle people across borders.

However, experts predict that as the National Guard presence increases on the southern border, the business of human trafficking will only grow.

“There will be more mechanisms of control, there will be greater rigidity, and that will cause an increase in the cost of crossing, which will strengthen organized crime’s business of trafficking people,” said Javier Urbano, a researcher in international affairs at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

“The greater the difficulty, the greater the cost and the greater the demand for traffickers,” he said.

Mexican and American authorities reached the agreement late Friday in the face of a US threat to levy five percent tariffs on all Mexican imports, beginning Monday and escalating to 25 percent by October.

“What I see is extortion: there are no tariffs and Mexico accepts a series of things that have many complications for the country,” said Leticia Calderon, an expert on migration at the Mora Institute, a research center in Mexico City.

Mexican activists and opposition politicians say the pact also implies the militarization of the southern border.