Original reporting by Alyssa Aalmo
Special to Think Immigration
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the natural rights given to American citizens, but for human smuggling organizations run out of Mexico, selling that dream is a profitable business.
“Coyotes or Polleros” scavenge the 120 mile stretch of land between Nogales, Mexico and Lukeville, Ariz. like vultures waiting for the right victim with enough money or connections to come along.
They will deceive, making promises of a safe journey at a flat rate to desperate customers unaware of the danger they are agreeing upon. The negotiations begin with cost but the facts about potential kidnapping, extortion of money, being held hostage, torture and maybe never making it to the final destination are never mentioned. According to crimefreeaz.com, Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of the U. S. as a result of these smuggling organizations.
“There are hundreds that are soliciting to bring them across,” said Alex Ortiz, Robbery Unit Sergeant for the Phoenix Police Department and former Illegal Immigration Prevention and Apprehension and Co-op Team (IMPACT) supervisor.
“When they come across they go through the desert, get picked up and then risk coming down freeways where other “coyotes” will literally run them off the road to kidnap them,” Ortiz added.
Once across the border illegal immigrants are taken to drop houses, or as Vincent Picard, public affairs office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, describes as distribution facilities, where illegal immigrants stay waiting for the next “coyote” to take them to a different city, or held against their will in demands for more money.
For one person to be smuggled into the United States the cost can be anywhere from $2,500-$4,000 and have been seen as high as $7,000 if they are trying to go to the East Coast, said Sgt. Manny Madrid, of the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office Human Smuggling Unit (H.S.U.)
“We don’t just get these numbers arbitrarily, we get these from the people that have been smuggled, but also we confirm because a lot of these drop houses we find ledgers of who owes how much,” said Lt. Joe Sousa, a Maricopa County Sheriffs Office H.S.U. Commander.
Anywhere from 10 to 100 illegal immigrants are packed into a house that has no furniture and no running water. The air in the room is stagnant; there is no air conditioning or fans to help ventilate the area. The smell of urine and body odor is overwhelming and trash litters the floor along with human feces and clothing.
Ortiz explains how the men and women are separated into different rooms, 2×4 boards cover the windows to prevent run aways and the men are asked to strip down to their underwear to ensure they will not leave the house. Top Ramen and eggs along with five gallon buckets of water are found in a majority of the houses and are key factors in what lead to malnutrition and dehydration.
The number one indicator that Madrid and Sousa both associate with a drop house was a dirt line from human bodies on the wall.
“Marks where they are sweaty and dirty and they lean up against a wall you can see the dirt marks of their backs,” Sousa said.
Torture is not an uncommon, to find and many of these hostages are treated not as humans, but as property.
“When people pay to be smuggled in they might pay up front but what these coyotes do is try to make extra money all of the sudden they hold and extort the family for more money and threaten their lives,” said Sousa.
Beatings, sexual assault, cutting off body parts, even deaths have been reported. Sousa describes one case in El Mirage where a man was shot in the head as an example for the other hostages.
6420 W. Virginia Ave in Phoenix today looks normal nestled among the beige homes. Halloween decorations scatter the windows and door and a soft glow from the dining room light illuminates the lawn. Directly across the street is Desert West Community Center, even after the sun had gone down children were still playing soccer on the brightly lit green grass. Byron A. Berry K-5 School is just a few blocks down on 60th Avenue and Lewis. Hard to believe that in May 2008, 50 illegal immigrants were found in the very same house, stripped down to their underwear crammed into 10-foot-by-10-foot rooms. One of the suspects needed to be transported to a local hospital for treatment because of abuse that he had encountered in the house.
“We have had drop houses in every neighborhood you could think of, we’ve had drop houses in run down neighborhoods, we’ve had drop houses in upper class neighborhoods,” Sousa said.
A drop house used to be identified by the boarded up windows and un-kept yard, along with high human activity at night, but Sousa explained how the days of packing people in U-Hauls are gone and “coyotes” are getting sophisticated.
“They put up curtains and board up the windows behind them, they will go out and pull their weeds, they will put up Christmas decorations,” he said.
Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, ICE, IMPACT and the Mayors office are all taking great strides to prevent human smuggling not just in Arizona, but at the source in Mexico.
“We arrest about 6,000 illegal immigrants almost every year that have committed serious crimes,” said Scott Phelps, spokesmen for Mayor Gordon who discusses the close collaboration between the Phoenix Police Department, ICE and the Mayor’s office.
“We focus on going after criminals, people who have committed felonies, violent crimes, repeat offenders [and] people with outstanding warrants,” said Phelps.
According to the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office Web site this year they have arrested 1,081, and have turned over 17,944 to ICE for deportation.
IMPACT can now directly help with the criminal charges, which according to Ortiz, traditionally the Phoenix Police Department would voluntary deport because it was an ICE problem, now they are actively taking part in prosecution.
ICE focuses on targeting the criminal organizations that are behind drop houses within the interior of the United States.
“ICE focus on going after the people that are making the most money or sitting on top of the human trafficking organizations,” Picard said.
Human smuggling has direct correlation with drug and ammunition smuggling which are typically found in houses, 95 percent of identity theft can be traced back to illegal immigrants, explains Sousa. Described as “symptoms of the human smuggling epidemic, 20% of crime committed in Arizona is done by illegal immigrants, and violent crimes are an even higher percentage,” he said.
“We are just scratching the surface,” said Sousa. “I don’t think people realize how bad it is.”
###
**Ms. Aalmo is a senior at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication**
