WASHINGTON (SOA) — There's been a lot of talk about the push and pull factors of global mass migration, especially in the region that has now become the busiest one in the country: Tucson, Arizona.
Tuscon has seen a 134% increase year over year in undocumented migrants encountered, most looking to claim asylum.
We met 19-year-old Lydia from Chiapas, Mexico who had just arrived in Tucson and told us in her country people are killing others without consequences.
For many of the millions of migrants who have arrived in the last few years, it often means fleeing one dangerous place for another.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Operations took us up in their chopper to show us what they see: hundreds of miles of desert with treacherous terrain and a border wall that more and more is breached.
Border Patrol Chief John Modlin, who oversees the Tucson Sector, said much of that has to do with the immense success of human smuggling organizations or cartels.
"It used to be that they could only affect very small areas, villages, small towns or someone that has successfully across the United States. The relatives may come and they may find out how they did it," Modlin said.
Fast forward to today and social media has widened their reach exponentially, where Modlin said they use videos showing so-called "successful journeys" to advertise "guarantees of safe passage."
The cost? For those from Latin American countries, it is often around $4,000 per person.
The number goes up to $20 thousand for those coming from Europe or Africa and those coming from China. Sources told me many spend between $40,000- $60,000 each.
It is estimated that two of the principal smuggling routes - leading from East, North and West Africa to Europe and from South America to North America - generate about $6.75 billion a year for criminal organizations, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Members of those organizations have become quite savvy at using social media to convince people to give up everything, Modlin said.
Those dangers have been captured in photos taken by border patrol, including one showing a woman suffering from severe dehydration. Another shows one barely able to move after falling from the wall.
Those working at the Arizona Air Coordination Center are often the ones who receive the calls.
“Some of these folks get out to these areas where it’s going to take agents hours to get to them," said Ronaldo Rios, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent.
Agents said those not left behind by smugglers are often taken to so-called stash houses, where they’re forced to remain until they can pay up.
Agents told us, that the more coordinated these groups have gotten, the harder it’s been for them to do their main job, which is to patrol the border.
They said it's given smugglers space and leeway to utilize some surprising methods of getting people or drugs into the country.
In Cochise County, Arizona, we found a part of the border fence that had been melted down multiple times by people using a blowtorch. Sledgehammers were also used to dig out the concrete below.
The efforts create a gap wide enough for people to get through. Written on the fence were the multiple dates it had been repaired, showing six repairs in just two months.
It's a harsh reality those on the front lines say they can no longer deny: As they struggle to keep up with processing millions of migrants, billions of dollars have flowed into the pockets of those behind bringing them here in the first place.
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