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Guatemalan Migrant Recruiter: It’s ‘Never Been Easier’ to Get Illegals Into the US | The Stream stream.org/guatemalan-mig…
Word is spreading among Central Americans that, if one reaches the U.S.-Mexico border with a child and claims asylum, it’s fairly easy to evade deportation.
“It’s never been easier for us to get families in,” Germán, a client recruiter for human smugglers, said in an interview with The Guardian. Germán works in Huehuetenango, a Guatemalan district that has experienced the highest rate of migration in the country.
A major motivation for migrants to make the trek across Mexico has been the U.S. media frenzy over child separation and administration’s “zero tolerance” polic. Tthe directive forced thousands of children to be separated from their families and invoked outrage from progressives.
After President Donald Trump ended the separations by executive order, locals in Central America took it as a sign that, if one arrives with a child, they are more likely able to stay.
“We know people who left just last month and are already in the US and working,” Agustín Marcos, a 44-year-old Guatemalan citizen who is considering leaving, said to The Guardian. If he brings his daughter, according to Marcos, he feels it will increase his chances of getting in
