The Tucson Sector of Border Patrol is spearheading a video campaign to deter teens and young people from being recruited into human smuggling.
Social media campaigns show true stories of young people who officials say were lured by multinational organizations to pick up illegal immigrants near the border and take them to cities like Tucson and Phoenix.
Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin said the focus of the campaign is to make young people aware that it’s not a “quick payday with no results.”
“When they get involved in the legal system, it can literally change the trajectory of their lives,” he said.
Young adults and teens are anonymous in the video. One young man starts talking about how he loves driving and meeting new people. Then he saw an ad on how to easily make $2,000 or $3,000. He began picking up immigrants near the border and was eventually stopped and charged with a felony.
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The Tucson Border Patrol’s new social media campaign uses personal stories to discourage teens from getting involved in human smuggling.
According to Modlin, criminal gangs are using social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok to deliver youth-style messages to teens.
“The use of these emojis, and even the font and the way the text is written, is written for a younger audience,” he said. “It definitely connects with more young people.”
The Border Patrol video campaign was created in partnership with the Alliance to Fight Cross-Border Threats, a multi-agency enforcement agency in Arizona, including Border Patrol. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Arizona Department of Public Safety; Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Marshall Service; U.S. Attorney’s Office; Homeland Security Investigations and Pinal County Sheriff’s Office.
Criminal gangs are increasingly recruiting teens and young people through social media platforms.
“I’m not saying you could spend the rest of your life in prison, die, or kill someone who had nothing to do with your decisions,” said Arizona Public Safety Director Jeff Glover. of video.
A few years ago, teenagers weren’t involved in smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, Modlin said, but they now make up about 20% of drivers. I’m assuming. They often don’t understand what they’re doing, officials say.
According to Modlin, young people are often inexperienced drivers and can be as young as 15 years old. Recruiters tell us not to stop at the police, but to drive aggressively and recklessly if the police are behind us.
Passengers in the car are often not wearing seat belts or are in the trunk. incident In February, a 43-year-old Mexican citizen who illegally entered the country was killed in the trunk of a Toyota Corolla when it was hit by a semi-truck fleeing law enforcement.
From April to December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed 855 lawsuits against individuals accused of smuggling illegal immigrants in Arizona. So far in 2023, there are at least 220 human smuggling charges filed in federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix.
According to Modlin, the Tucson sector has been charged with smuggling more than any other sector of the Border Patrol. That’s more than the second and his third height combined.
And in the last four months of 2022, about 130 lawsuits have been filed in Cochise County with new charges, Modlin said, after a state law banning human smuggling was passed in September.
There are many factors to consider, but authorities will try to determine whether video campaigns are having a positive effect in the coming months.
“If one less citizen crashes at an intersection at 110 mph, that’s success,” Modlin says. “If you can prevent one child from going to college to being incarcerated, that’s a win, too.”
