Tucson border campaign aims to stop teens from human smuggling

The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector is spearheading a video campaign to dissuade teens and young adults from getting recruited into the smuggling of humans.

The social media campaign shows the real stories of young people officials say were lured by transnational organizations into picking up undocumented migrants near the border and taking them to cities such as Tucson or Phoenix.

The focus of the campaign is to get young people to realize that it’s not “a quick payday with no consequence,” says Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin.

“It can literally change the trajectory of their lives once they become involved with the legal system,” he said. “There’s a lot at stake.”

The young adults and teens are anonymous in the videos. One young man starts telling his story by talking about how he loves to drive and meet new people. Then he saw an ad for an easy way to make $2,000 or $3,000. He started picking up migrants near the border, eventually got pulled over and is facing felony charges.

Criminal organizations use social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok to reach teens with messages that have a style aimed at youths, Modlin says.

“The use of these emojis and even the font and the way the text is written, it is written for a young audience,” he said. “There’s no question it’s going to connect with much younger people.”

The border officials’ video campaign is created in partnership with the Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats, a multi-agency enforcement arm in Arizona that includes the Border Patrol; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Arizona Department of Public Safety; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Marshall’s Service; the U.S. Attorney’s Office; Homeland Security Investigations and the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office.

There’s been an increase in criminal organizations recruiting teens and young adults through social media platforms.

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“What they won’t tell you is you could spend the rest of your life in jail, you could die or you could kill someone else who had nothing to do with your decision,” said Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Jeff Glover in one of the videos.

Two or three years ago, teens weren’t getting involved in human smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, Modlin says, but now he estimates they make up about 20% of the drivers. They often don’t understand what they’re getting into, officials say.

The young people are often inexperienced drivers, who could be as young as 15. The recruiters tell them not to stop for police but to drive aggressively and recklessly if the police are behind them, Modlin says.

The passengers in the vehicles are often not wearing seatbelts or are in the trunk, as in an incident in February, where a 43-year-old Mexican citizen who had crossed the border undocumented died after being in the trunk of a Toyota Corolla that hit a semi-truck after it fled from law enforcement.

From April 2022 through December, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed 855 cases against individuals accused of smuggling undocumented migrants in Arizona, including 13 cases brought against juveniles. So far, in 2023, there have been at least 220 cases of human smuggling charges filed in federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix.

The Tucson Sector has more prosecutions for human smuggling than any other Border Patrol sector, Modlin says. It has more than the second and third highest combined.

Also, a state law against human smuggling was approved in September, and in the last four months of 2022, there were about 130 cases filed in Cochise County under the new charge, Modlin says.

While there are many factors to consider, officials will try to determine if the video campaign is having any positive effect in the coming months.

“If it’s one less citizen getting hit at 110 miles an hour in an intersection, it’s a success,” Modlin said. “If we can prevent one kid from the trajectory from going to college to now being incarcerated, that’s also a win.”