THE COYOTE CARTEL NEXT DOOR: ROLLING STONE, AZTECA VALLE-KRGV-5 SCOOP THE NATIONAL AND RGV PRESS

( The photo above was taken around the Reynosa area on the Rio Grande. Rolling Stone reporter Seth Harp – guided across the river into the heart of coyote cartel stronghold by Enrique Lerma, an investigative reporter for Azteca Valle-KRGV5 News – explored the human smuggling industry that has crossed thousands of migrants and asylum seekers across the Rio Grande. Lerma and Harp investigated the human trafficking industry that has sprung as poverty and crime drive the migrants from their homelands. Kudos to Lerma, Azteca Valle-KRGV5 News, and, of course, Rolling Stone for this story of enormous importance to the Rio Grande Valley and the United States which has remained in the shadows until now.)

"In the Rio Grande Valley, human smuggling is overseen by a powerful crime syndicate, forcing the migrants arriving in record numbers to put their lives in violent hands..".

By Seth Harp

Rolling Stone

The pistol the boy is holding is a plastic toy. He and two other kids from Honduras are playing on the pedestal of a statue of an Aztec eagle in Reynosa, a Mexican city just south of the tail end of Texas. The three of them are wearing face masks, as are most of the Central American migrants packed together, sleeping rough, in this city square, Plaza de la República. 

It is May 14th, 2021, and cases of Covid-19 are common among the multitudes of deportees being turned back from the United States in record numbers.

(I’ve come to Reynosa with Enrique Lerma, a reporter for Azteca Valle- KRGV-News 5, a Spanish-language news channel that broadcasts throughout the Valley.)

Never have so many undocumented migrants arrived at the same time to the Rio Grande Valley. Many of the plazas in Reynosa have turned into open-air camps like this one. 

I count 50 to 100 tents, sheltering four or five people apiece. Most are from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Many come from within Mexico, too. The bandstand in the center of the square has been draped in so many tarpaulins that it looks like a big patchwork yurt. People line up to charge their cellphones from an extension cord run in from a light post. Lines of laundry hang from the trees.

In five days’ time, a thunderstorm will flood this encampment and turn the beaten-down grass into mud. Today, it’s warm and muggy, and the air is motionless, typical weather for humid Reynosa, 50 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. For the most part, these deportees did not choose to come to this city, which is perennially ranked among the world’s most homicidal. 

They have been dropped off here by U.S. immigration authorities after failed attempts to cross the border, mostly at more rural points upstream. This plaza, one block from the international bridge to McAllen, Texas, is essentially a collection point, where migrants await their next attempt to cross into the United States. 

The deals they have struck with smugglers, known as coyotes or polleros, allow them to try several times. That’s only fair, when most of them have paid between $7,000 and $15,000, depending on their country of origin. It’s a huge sum — $7,000 is more than the average annual income in Honduras — and it typically has to be raised by relatives already in the U.S., or by the sale of land, with many forms of repayment amounting to indentured servitude. But the price promises passage not just over the Texas border, but all the way to Houston, in most cases including housing, food, and transportation.

“Nos agarraron,” says a man coming down from the McAllen bridge with muddy shoes and jeans: “They grabbed us.” He’s with five others, all muddy to the knees, who have been turned back by Border Patrol. But he grins and gives a thumbs-up. “We’re going to try again later. We’re fighting for a good life.”

The legacy of Spanish colonialism, U.S. coups in the Cold War, the pan-Latin American war on drugs, and the expropriation of natural resources by multinational companies are among the factors that have driven Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to the brink of failed-state status. 

Deforestation, overfishing, unregulated pollution, and especially soil erosion have made environmental conditions dire. Most of all, the people suffer from poverty and lack of opportunity. Those who can afford the smuggler’s fee are considered fortunate. It’s a big investment to make, and the price keeps going up as the U.S. border grows harder to penetrate. 

The dangers of the journey have also intensified, as the main route increasingly converges with one of the most fractious battlegrounds of the long-running cartel wars in Mexico.

To read rest of article, click on link: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/border-crisis-2021-gulf-cartel-rio-grande-valley-1182608/