Human Smuggling

Mexican officials teamed up with U.S. Border Patrol to locate another cross-border smuggling tunnel. Officials report the finding of a tunnel on Tuesday near the Stanton-Lerdo Port of Entry in El Paso.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks reported a 55 percent drop in migrants encountered along the border during the past week. Migrant apprehensions fell from more than 10,000 during the previous week to less than 5,000 during the past seven days.

Authorities in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua have confirmed the discovery of at least 71 bodies in 46 mass graves in a rural area a short distance south of the border with New Mexico. Cartel gunmen were reportedly using the region to dispose of their victims, who remain mostly unidentified.

President Donald Trump signed at least ten executive orders on his first day in office impacting border security, illegal immigration, and crimes by people illegally present in the United States.

Two leaders of Los Zetas Cartel and one of their top gunmen received a series of sentences for pending charges tied to their role in the kidnapping and murder of numerous migrants between 2010 and 2011 in San Fernando, Tamaulipas.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers arrested four confirmed Tren de Aragua gang members after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico. The four Venezuelan gang members crossed in a group of 22 migrants from four countries on New Year’s Eve.

A migrant illegally present in the United States is in a Texas jail charged with kidnapping a Guatemalan migrant woman and holding her for ransom. He reportedly forced the woman to perform labor to work off her smuggling debt.

At least three illegal migrants died while trying to cross the English Channel in a small people-smuggler operated boat on Sunday morning, making this year the deadliest on record since the crisis began.

Nearly 70 migrants died when their boat sank as they tried to reach Spain earlier this month, Mali´s Minister for Malians Living Abroad said.

More than 10,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea this year, a report has said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched a billboard campaign in Mexico and Central America, warning of the consequences of illegal migrants to the Lone Star State. One billboard asks migrant parents, “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?”

Another migrant caravan began this week in Southern Mexico, confirming a prior report from Breitbart Texas about the caravan forming with over 2000 individuals. The group wants to reach the U.S.-Mexico border before the January 20 start of the Trump administration. Mexican immigration officials did not try to stop the caravan but stood by and photographed it.

The last of six human smugglers pleaded guilty last week to the deaths of two Salvadoran migrants who were beaten to death in a warehouse in Houston in 2006. The two smugglers face up to life in prison following sentencing hearings set for next year.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel questioned the findings of a CBP internal investigation concerning a whistleblower complaint that, among other allegations, the Deming New Mexico Air Unit was prevented from responding to emergency calls, resulting in several deaths. The deaths included one migrant and a Border Patrol agent who died in July 2020. After investigating the matter, the Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) ruled the allegations were unsubstantiated.

More than 2,000 migrants in southern Mexico are planning a new caravan in an attempt to reach the U.S. border before the arrival of the Trump administration on January 20. The caravan is set to depart on Thursday at midnight as they plan to avoid interference from Mexico’s immigration officials.

U.S. and Guatemalan officials announced the arrest of five people for their roles in an alleged human smuggling operation. The arrest took place in Houston, Texas, and El Boquerón, Guatemala, after 50 smuggled migrants were killed in a tractor-trailer crash in Chiapas, Mexico.

An investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents identified a migrant smuggling ring being operated by three U.S. Army Soldiers based at Fort Cavazos near Killeen, Texas.

Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers interdicted 176 migrants in a single group after they crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico on Sunday. The group crossed into the United States near the small Texas border town of Eagle Pass shortly before noon. According to a DPS spokesperson, 11 migrants within the group were identified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) from Afghanistan.

Soon after Mexico’s government dissolved a migrant caravan that was moving north, a new caravan departed from the country’s southern border. The migrants expressed their final goal of reaching the border with the United States before President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Mexican immigration authorities dissolved one of the large migrant caravans moving through southern Mexico as they provided the group with bus transportation to other parts of Mexico and promised to help them with their paperwork. The move comes soon after Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum had phone calls with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump over the threats of tariffs if Mexico does not halt the flow of drugs, migrants, and asylum seekers headed north.

Border Patrol agents and Texas National Guard soldiers ordered a medical airlift on Sunday morning for a migrant child seriously injured in a razor wire barrier along the border. The child was injured as a large migrant group pushed their way through after a standoff with Guardsmen.

Human smugglers in Mexico raised their rates to cross migrants across the border into the United States as the task of even reaching the southwest border becomes more difficult. Among the number of reasons for that and the causes cited for the rise in smuggling fees is the outcome of the recent presidential election.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers detained a Mexican woman after she allegedly paid a human smuggler $8,000 to bring her five-year-old daughter across the Rio Grand. Troopers made the discovery after a traffic stop in Del Rio, Texas.

Authorities in Mexico rescued 22 migrants being held by cartel gunmen at a ranch in southern Mexico. The rescue came after a fierce gun battle where a soldier and a police officer died during the clash with more than 15 gunmen.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum fired a warning at incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump over his threats to impose tariffs because of the ongoing immigration and drug trafficking issue.

A French court found 18 people guilty in a major migrant-smuggling trial that shed light on the lucrative but deadly clandestine business.

As election day nears, a non-profit migrant shelter in San Antonio saw the number of housed migrants rise since May. As Texas border border cities begin to experience a rise in crossings, the San Antonio Migrant Resource Center has housed nearly 12,500 migrants since October 1, 2024.

The Texas Department of Public Safety released a video showing the chaos occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border resulting from the open-border policies of the Biden-Harris administration. The video shows multiple human smuggling operations, drug seizures, and cartel gun battles near the border.

Search off Greek island of Samos recovers bodies of two people reported missing overnight after a boat carrying 24 migrants ran into trouble.

A group of 75 migrants crossing to Europe from North Africa has been rescued from a crippled boat south of the island of Crete.

A convicted drug and human smuggler pleaded guilty to additional charges regarding numerous video calls with an underage teen female while awaiting trial behind bars.

Greece’s coast guard says three people died and another five were rescued after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean island of Samos.

A Houston man is charged with human smuggling after a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper found 16 migrants locked behind a fake wall in a cargo trailer.

A van apparently packed with migrants veered off a road and hit a lamp post in Croatia while speeding to escape police.

At least 12 people, mostly women, have been killed in an unseaworthy boat attempting to gain access to the United Kingdom’s southern border.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers discovered 17 migrants hidden inside a cloned semi-tractor trailer traveling away from the border in rural southwest Texas. As temperatures neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, the disruption of the human smuggling event may have saved the lives of those on board.