No. of Recommendations: 2
Remember, a very large number of asylum applications (half a million last year) are affirmative requests, not defensive requests. A defensive request gets submitted as a way of stopping a removal/deportation process at the border, both between and at ports of entry. If someone is physically present in the country but is subject to being removed because they lack a visa or have crossed outside of a POE, they file a defensive request. Affirmative requests are filed outside of that scenario - someone who isn't trying to avoid being removed because they're here without permission, but instead is making a request to stay for good.But the above is the very definition of gaming the system.
If I'm a coyote, and I make a lot of money on getting migrants to and over the border, then why wouldn't I have a nice packet of what to say the US Border Patrol if me and my party get caught?
This isn't a new thing as it turns out:
latimes.com - Hard times for migrant smugglers amid crackdownGUACATAN, Guatemala — These are lean times for Hugo and others in his time-honored profession.
He hasn’t worked regularly in weeks and is back in college studying accounting, which he took up after ditching criminal science as unsuitable considering his full-time gig.
“It’s just too hard to do the job right now,” said Hugo, who makes his living as a people smuggler, or coyote, guiding migrants on the often-perilous journey from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. border.
A crackdown by Mexican authorities — acting at the insistence of President Trump — has dramatically reduced the flow of Central American migrants this summer.Oh, sorry. Had to throw that in there. :)
Back to the point I was making:
But most colleagues, Hugo said, understand that they are in a competitive business, and that customer service is paramount.
Though some coyotes advertise on local radio or social media, boasting that they can facilitate the “American dream,” migrants typically choose smugglers whom they have used before or who have been recommended by friends or relatives.
“This is a business based on trust,” Hugo said. “People could denounce us, they could burn us. But they don’t.”Many of these guys are businessmen, after all. Hugo here doesn't really want to make a living as an accountant, after all.
With their approval, Hugo checks his charges into hotels catering to the trade.
At that point, his journey north is over. Mexican coyotes deposit migrants at the Rio Grande and instruct them to give themselves up to U.S. Border Patrol agents to claim asylum.They're gaming the system and have for years.
