Speaker 1: Every time I went to the checkpoint and always seen
Speaker 1: that sign should do so, Uh, smuggling illegal aliens is
Speaker 1: a fellow name. So every time I've seen that sign,
Speaker 1: I would always I cringed a little bit, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't get too nervous. From Bloomberg News and I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: it's the big take. I'm West Cansova today, the story
Speaker 1: of a US citizen who helps smuggle migrant workers into
Speaker 1: the country. For decades now, the U s Government has
Speaker 1: tried and failed to hold back the crush of immigrants
Speaker 1: crossing the southern border into the US. Some are seeking
Speaker 1: asylum from violence in their home countries. Many more are
Speaker 1: hoping to find work in a path of poverty. Tens
Speaker 1: of thousands are able to evade detection because they pay
Speaker 1: so called coyotes. Those are the guides who know the
Speaker 1: illicit roots into the country. Once across, they've still got
Speaker 1: to get past highway border patrol checkpoints, and that's where
Speaker 1: a largely hidden workforce comes in. People in the US,
Speaker 1: many of them US citizens, who are themselves struggling to
Speaker 1: stay afloat, are recruited by smugglers to transport people who
Speaker 1: are hidden in vehicles. One of them was Dennis Wilson,
Speaker 1: who you heard at the top. Just now, My colleague
Speaker 1: Julia Love went to Texas to report for Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week about this underground industry and about the consequences for
Speaker 1: people like Dennis Wilson and others who break the law
Speaker 1: and get caught. Julia, with so much attention on the
Speaker 1: border with Mexico, it's become more difficult to get across.
Speaker 1: What's the most common way people do it these days?
Speaker 1: So for this story, I have been focusing on the
Speaker 1: Rio Grand Valley. There's many different ways to cross the border,
Speaker 1: but in the Rio Grand Valley the border is the river,
Speaker 1: and so migrants generally crossed the river on small inflatable rafts.
Speaker 1: I've actually, um, you know, witnessed these crossings on a
Speaker 1: right along with um border patrol and they, you know,
Speaker 1: will sort of border raft with a handful of other
Speaker 1: migrants and sort of raft across the river. So they
Speaker 1: cross the river in boats and then they are ferried
Speaker 1: by the smuggling networks into a system of stash houses.
Speaker 1: Because although they've made it onto US soil um, there
Speaker 1: are still more hurdles to clear. We'll come back to
Speaker 1: those hurdles in a bit, But first I asked Julia
Speaker 1: to describe what it takes for migrants just to get
Speaker 1: into one of those boats. Each journey is a little
Speaker 1: bit different, but oftentimes migrants made contact with smugglers when
Speaker 1: they are still in their home countries before they depart.
Speaker 1: They make their way through through the America's through Central America,
Speaker 1: through Mexico, and then when they reach the U. S.
Speaker 1: Mexico border, that's um, you know, one of the most
Speaker 1: complicated parts of the journey. Law enforcement sources tell me
Speaker 1: that they usually don't make that it across the Rio
Speaker 1: Grand the River border without working with a coyote, because
Speaker 1: they generally have to make a payment to the tartel
Speaker 1: in order to cross. But by the time that they've
Speaker 1: made it to Mexico, advocates say that generally migrants have
Speaker 1: connected with coyotes in part because Mexico is just such
Speaker 1: a dangerous place for migrants and refugees. And why is that.
Speaker 1: The cartels just have a strangel hold on Mexico and
Speaker 1: they've diversified their business far beyond drugs. Um They see
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of money to be made in
Speaker 1: moving migrants and they want a piece of that, and
Speaker 1: so they have really preyed on migrants. They frequently kidnapped them,
Speaker 1: destory them. It's an incredibly dangerous environment for migrants and
Speaker 1: so for some traveling with the coyote gives them, you know,
Speaker 1: some semblance of safety, but certainly by the time they
Speaker 1: reach the U. S. Mexito border, that is a territory
Speaker 1: that the Mexican drug cartels just monitor so closely that
Speaker 1: if they're going to make it across, they will have
Speaker 1: to make a payment for the right of passage, and
Speaker 1: the smoothest way to do that is with a coyote
Speaker 1: that has a relationship with the cartel. So you mentioned
Speaker 1: a payment, and this becomes a big thing because there's
Speaker 1: payments that kind of every stop of the way. What
Speaker 1: kind of money are we talking about? These are obviously
Speaker 1: people who don't have a lot. The amount that migrants
Speaker 1: pay really depends on how far they're traveling, where they're
Speaker 1: departing from the International Organization for Migration told us that,
Speaker 1: you know, migrants from Central America might pay I believe
Speaker 1: it was five to ten thousand dollars, and then migrants
Speaker 1: departing from Ecuador might pay fifteen thousand dollars to twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and then for extra continental migrants, those traveling
Speaker 1: from Africa or Asia, they're commonly spending north of forty
Speaker 1: dollars for the journey. And Julia're right that once there
Speaker 1: across the border, that's when they encounter this whole other
Speaker 1: set of hurdles on the U. S. Side, Is that right, Yes,
Speaker 1: So they crossed the river in boats and then they
Speaker 1: are ferried by the smuggling networks into a system of
Speaker 1: stash houses. Because although they've made it onto US soil, um,
Speaker 1: there are still more hurdles to clear because the US
Speaker 1: government has a big system of checkpoints that are located um,
Speaker 1: you know, sixty seventy miles north of the border, where
Speaker 1: they conduct traffic stops to stand passing cars to see
Speaker 1: if they have migrants on board. In her story, Julia
Speaker 1: writes that this is where the coyotes are smugglers on
Speaker 1: the U. S side come in. The border patrol can't
Speaker 1: stop and inspect every vehicle that passes through the checkpoints,
Speaker 1: so they look for vehicles and drivers that seem out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary. To minimize that suspicion, the smugglers often
Speaker 1: recruit Americans who they believe border agents will wave through.
Speaker 1: I'd say from the cases I've seen, they're often um
Speaker 1: transported in small groups from the river to a stash house,
Speaker 1: and then once they're in that stash house, they wait,
Speaker 1: they wait until it's their turn to be gathered up
Speaker 1: into a group and taken across the checkpoint. And sometimes
Speaker 1: this happens and you know, a few people in the
Speaker 1: trunk of a car, and other times it's a much
Speaker 1: larger group in a trailer. The American tyotes are certainly
Speaker 1: part of a system that has been influenced by the
Speaker 1: title along the Way, because those checkpoints that extend so
Speaker 1: far into the United States, there's a real need for
Speaker 1: a labor force of um, you know, people on US soil,
Speaker 1: often US citizens, to sort of operate that last leg
Speaker 1: of the journey. And uh, from the cases that I've reviewed,
Speaker 1: Sometimes people here about these opportunities on social media. They
Speaker 1: might see a post um, you know, hey, reach out
Speaker 1: to me if you need a few thousand dollars. Other
Speaker 1: times they hear about the jobs through friends of friends.
Speaker 1: But it seems like the smuggling networks are always interested
Speaker 1: in deepening the bunch of people that they have to
Speaker 1: do these jobs. Julia's reporting focuses on the story of
Speaker 1: Dennis Wilson. He's a Texan who is recruited to drive
Speaker 1: migrants across the checkpoints. He spoke to recently about how
Speaker 1: he got into this kind of work back in Well.
Speaker 1: It all started. I was panhandling money at a at
Speaker 1: a local gas station close to where I lived at
Speaker 1: two gentlemen approached me and asked me if i'd be
Speaker 1: interested in moving some farm equipment. I was kind of
Speaker 1: panhandling money to, you know, just support my habit and
Speaker 1: my living arrangements where I was staying at. And these
Speaker 1: two gentleman's pulled up. One offered me three dollars, another
Speaker 1: one offered me two dollars, and then they both they
Speaker 1: put most of me over to the vehicle and asked
Speaker 1: me if I would be interested in making a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a day. And I had told them that I
Speaker 1: could make that in a couple of hours where I
Speaker 1: was at just panhandling, panhandling, And then they asked me
Speaker 1: if I would be interested. I told him no, I
Speaker 1: could make you know, I would make that in a
Speaker 1: couple of hours. Well, then they had asked me if
Speaker 1: I was there. I was interested in making five dollars
Speaker 1: a day and said, well, that would take me about
Speaker 1: two days, you know to come up with that kind
Speaker 1: of money, didn't They asked me about making a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a day, and I jumped on it. Look quick,
Speaker 1: Uh there was thousand dollars a day. Was just too
Speaker 1: much to believe. The men told him to make that money,
Speaker 1: all he had to do was drive a hay balor
Speaker 1: from one Texas town to another. Hey, bailor makes those
Speaker 1: big round bills you see in fields by the highway.
Speaker 1: It's a big machine that's pulled behind a truck. If
Speaker 1: Dennis was wary, he didn't ask why that job was
Speaker 1: worth quite so much money. He took them up on
Speaker 1: the offer that picked me up. They drove me from
Speaker 1: here to Edinburgh, Texas, which is on the of the
Speaker 1: United States side the Rear Grand Valley. They put me
Speaker 1: up in an hotel room for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and then we shut out one morning about four thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning, and I had to drive that pull
Speaker 1: that hate bailor that across the checkpoint in full furious
Speaker 1: the checkpoint. The border patrol set up the check station
Speaker 1: and they asked you if you're you're a United States citizen,
Speaker 1: and if you were, they passed. They pulled you on through.
Speaker 1: There was no physical search. I thank god there wasn't
Speaker 1: no physical search that morning because going towards Houston, there
Speaker 1: was a piece of metal flap that was flapping in
Speaker 1: the wind. So when I pulled over on the side
Speaker 1: of the road and a little bity town called Berkelear, Texas,
Speaker 1: which is a speed trap for dps like to sit
Speaker 1: in there and catch feeders, and I climbed up on
Speaker 1: I got out of the vehicle, climbed up on top
Speaker 1: of the fixed that flap, and I looked down inside
Speaker 1: and there were people inside. I had ten illegal immigrants
Speaker 1: inside that hay Bailor. Did you know that there were
Speaker 1: people in that hey Bailor when you set off on
Speaker 1: the drive? No, I did not. But this particular hay
Speaker 1: Baler didn't have no no inner workings because they had
Speaker 1: taken all the inner workings out of it. There was
Speaker 1: ten people inside one of them that wanted that you
Speaker 1: could put ten people inside of one. Dennis, what went
Speaker 1: through your mind when you looked into that hay Baler
Speaker 1: and saw people? I was devastated. I was extremely devastated.
Speaker 1: Our story continues after the break. You heard Dennis say
Speaker 1: he was devastated when he found out there were people
Speaker 1: hidden inside the hay balor he was driving. So he
Speaker 1: confronted one of the men who recruited him. I called
Speaker 1: him on the phone and I told them, what are
Speaker 1: y'all trying to do to me one of my Why
Speaker 1: am I hauling people? They didn't have nothing to say
Speaker 1: at that moment. I just kept driving. When he got
Speaker 1: to his destination, the men handed him more than double
Speaker 1: the thousand dollars he'd been promised, and in the months
Speaker 1: that followed, Dennis continued to take driving jobs, hauling more
Speaker 1: and more people and making a lot of money. I
Speaker 1: didn't do it just for the money. UM. I did
Speaker 1: for the money for the longest part because I am.
Speaker 1: I'm an addict and recovery. Uh. When I say addict
Speaker 1: and recovery, I was a crystal meth user for many years. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's and the money's the money was there, and
Speaker 1: it was even though it wasn't legitimate money. It's supported
Speaker 1: it's supported my drug added And so each time you
Speaker 1: made the drive after that first time, you knew there
Speaker 1: were people. Oh yes, oh yes, I knew there are
Speaker 1: people when you approached those checkpoints. What went through your mind?
Speaker 1: I kept telling myself every time I drove through, you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is a physical fellow me, this is
Speaker 1: get me in a lot of trouble. I didn't look
Speaker 1: at it like that. Then. I was more I was
Speaker 1: more into what what Dennis wanted to do, not the
Speaker 1: consequences behind it. I was looking for my next bitch.
Speaker 1: Julia says this is a pretty common strategy for the
Speaker 1: smuggling network. Recruiters find vulnerable people who need the money
Speaker 1: and offer them a lot of it, and at least
Speaker 1: at first, not let on what it's for. These parts
Speaker 1: of southern Texas are some of the poorest counties in
Speaker 1: the state. There's a lot of people in really desperate need,
Speaker 1: and for people who are, you know, working minimum wage
Speaker 1: jobs or perhaps unemployed like Dennis, it can be very
Speaker 1: tempting when you have the chance to make a few
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for a day's work. And if they're stopping
Speaker 1: people at checkpoints, why don't they just discover them all
Speaker 1: the time. How is it that they're able to evade
Speaker 1: the checkpoints? There are just so many tars passing through
Speaker 1: the checkpoint each day that it would simply be impractical
Speaker 1: for the government to stop and search everyone, and so
Speaker 1: many tars do make it through. One thing that really
Speaker 1: has stood out to me is just the number of
Speaker 1: prosecutions and how they have increased over the years. Last year,
Speaker 1: according to some statistics from a research institute at Syracuse University,
Speaker 1: there weren't merely six thousands of these prosecutions record number.
Speaker 1: And these are coyotes who are prosecuting. These are people
Speaker 1: who are being prosecuted for human smuggling um that's generally
Speaker 1: driving minors to the checkpoints or perhaps running a stash
Speaker 1: house where they stay in the United States. They're taking
Speaker 1: on a great amount of risk for that pay day.
Speaker 1: Early one morning in twenty nineteen, Dennis's luck ran out.
Speaker 1: He told me the story of the day he got caught.
Speaker 1: And most of the time it was like four thirty,
Speaker 1: between four thirty and five thirty in the morning when
Speaker 1: I went through, because the shift changed, they don't start
Speaker 1: to all the vehicles at that time of the morning,
Speaker 1: So at six o'clock with shift change, that's when they
Speaker 1: bring in the dogs and stuff like that there wasn't
Speaker 1: no dogs at night or in the early morning hours,
Speaker 1: and they didn't come out at all when range. You
Speaker 1: were doing the drive as you've done before, but it
Speaker 1: turned out differently at the checkpoint. What happened, Well, I
Speaker 1: got to the checkpoint, like at six o'clock on the
Speaker 1: morning that I got arrested. I pulled up to the
Speaker 1: checkpoint um the officer said, he looked in my direction.
Speaker 1: I looked nervous to him and the other officer that
Speaker 1: was there, he had a dog and the dog's name
Speaker 1: was Weston. I think, what's his name? And they said
Speaker 1: the dog and learned the other man that there were
Speaker 1: there was something in the in the back of the RVA.
Speaker 1: I started moving him in r vs after I graduated
Speaker 1: from moving used in the hay bailer, why did you
Speaker 1: switch the RVs because I could get more people in there.
Speaker 1: The officer went to the door of the RV, opened
Speaker 1: the door and he said, oh my god, you need
Speaker 1: to put he said, he mote the meal you need
Speaker 1: to pull in the secondary lane. And they came over
Speaker 1: there and they said, you had fifty people inside that RV.
Speaker 1: But there was nothing like endangement that they weren't endangered
Speaker 1: beading in any means. I mean they had clean clothes on,
Speaker 1: they had food to eat, and they had water drink,
Speaker 1: and there was a nice atmosphere inside that RV. It
Speaker 1: was I mean it was clean. I was immediately arrested,
Speaker 1: taken into the Border patrol station. Now I was interrogated
Speaker 1: brief upon what was going on and what did you do? Um?
Speaker 1: I told the truth. I told exactly what I knew.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to do this. You have
Speaker 1: to you don't have to say nothing. You can wait
Speaker 1: till you have attorney president. I said, no, I'm willing
Speaker 1: to speak. I was trying to live in that line.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Dennis. Were you relieved at all
Speaker 1: that you've been cut? Yes, yes, I've been very relieved.
Speaker 1: Why is that because I've been a drug I've been
Speaker 1: a drug addict for the last fifty years. So they
Speaker 1: asked you about what you've been doing, and you told
Speaker 1: them the whole story. Yes, sir. Dennis was sentenced to
Speaker 1: fifty two months in federal prison. I've got into a
Speaker 1: residential drug drug program while I was in prison. I
Speaker 1: got out eight two months early. I went to a
Speaker 1: half way house. I'm a freeman right now. I mean
Speaker 1: I'm I'm still on paper. I still have a probation office.
Speaker 1: I'm on probation for the next two years. When you
Speaker 1: look back at the everything you went through, would you
Speaker 1: do it again? No? Not just no, but hell no. Uh.
Speaker 1: It took three and a half years of my life
Speaker 1: away from me. Dennis, you've seen the border problem close
Speaker 1: up from a point of view not many people have.
Speaker 1: If you were in charge, how would you fix it.
Speaker 1: I'm not a political man by any means. I don't
Speaker 1: like our president. I just but when when he opened
Speaker 1: the borders up, I figured that was away for some,
Speaker 1: that was the way up with every get a little
Speaker 1: bit further in life. Well, the wall is no solution
Speaker 1: because the build a wall, they're just going to either dig,
Speaker 1: dig under it, or climb over it. They want asylum
Speaker 1: in the United States, Give it to them. Mexican Mexican citizens.
Speaker 1: They want asylum here because they have a their their
Speaker 1: countries and poverty. Give it to Dennis Wilson. Thank you
Speaker 1: for talking with me today. You're quite welcome. Dennis Wilson
Speaker 1: is just one of thousands of people who have been
Speaker 1: prosecuted for taking party in smuggling migrants across the border.
Speaker 1: So what is the US government doing to try to
Speaker 1: discourage people from taking on this kind of work. So
Speaker 1: this has been a prosecution of human smugglers has really
Speaker 1: been a priority in both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Speaker 1: Prosecutions have continued to rise under Under Biden, they recently
Speaker 1: announced a new Joint Task Force Alpha that is dedicated
Speaker 1: to prostituting these tribes and has announced the dismantling of
Speaker 1: a pretty big smuggling rain. But there's different stools of thought.
Speaker 1: The government only has so many resources, and I've taught
Speaker 1: to some who think that the government would do well
Speaker 1: to focus on the bigger cases that help them go
Speaker 1: higher up the chain and target the people who are
Speaker 1: really running these networks. Others feel that it's important to
Speaker 1: send a message of deterrence and prosecute even the low
Speaker 1: level offenders so that the message is out there that
Speaker 1: you will face consequences if you if you do this work.
Speaker 1: From the ones who I have interviewed, most do know
Speaker 1: that it is a crime. There is a sign on
Speaker 1: highway to night One, you know, advising them that it's
Speaker 1: a felony to do so. But I think that for
Speaker 1: most of them, they are just so sort of preoccupied
Speaker 1: with the desperation of their own lives that they feel
Speaker 1: that it's a necessary risk that they're undertaking. And then
Speaker 1: they also do feel that they are helping someone in need,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's that combination that helps them
Speaker 1: justify the rest they take. Julia Love thanks so much
Speaker 1: for talking with me today. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You can read more of Julia Loves reporting at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. Thank you for listening to us here at
Speaker 1: The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. From more shows from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen. The supervising producer of The Big Take is
Speaker 1: Vicky Virgolina, Our senior producer is Katherine Fink, Our producer
Speaker 1: is Rebecca Chassan, and our associate producer is Sam Gebauer.
Speaker 1: Raphael I'm Seeley is our engineer. Our original music was
Speaker 1: composed by Leo Sidrin. I'm west Casova will be back
Speaker 1: on Monday with another Big Take. Have a great weekend,
Speaker 1: um hm