Coyote

Illegal Immigrant Crossings

Coyotes' main objectives are to help immigrants travel within an intermediate country en route to the target border, cross borders into intermediate or target countries, and travel without detection to final destinations within target countries once their borders are successfully crossed.

Several common strategies are used for border crossings, including some aimed at successful deception at legal ports of entry. Coyotes may provide forged documents and identities, or legal documents for temporary use, enabling migrants to successfully cross legal ports of entry and immigration checkpoints once across the border. They may also conceal migrants as passengers or cargo in vehicles that are legally crossing.

Coyotes may also assist migrants to cross at illegal points of entry along the border, while successfully evading the U.S. Border Patrol, frequently guiding migrants by foot through arduous terrain such as desert, brush, and mountains to avoid immigration checkpoints. They may use infrared scopes, cell phones, and computers to keep track of their clients' destinations, often cooperating with other coyotes in a larger sophisticated network. Clients may transition between several coyotes as they cross within and between countries.

The need for coyotes' services among those who cannot achieve legal or less dangerous methods of entry into the United States appears to outweigh concerns about their reliability, and may render migrants vulnerable to coyotes' many self-serving machinations. While marketing their services as helpful and protective, coyotes are also known for deception and abuse of their clients. This deception may begin with coyotes' attempts to attract clients. In order to overcome the reluctance of doubtful or fearful clients, coyotes may misrepresent such issues as the dangers and difficulty of the terrain that migrants will travel through, the amount of time required, conditions for transport, probability of successful arrival at their destination, total fees for the coyote's services, and the dangers of some coyotes' trickery, and even violence.

Codependence in Deception

Once the journey has begun, migrants' isolation from external support or law enforcement and their position in unknown and challenging terrain, creates a dependence upon the coyote that can enhance fear, increase the need to trust the coyote, and render migrants vulnerable to new demands that the coyote may impose. The coyote may change the terms of engagement when faced with a newly fortified border, for example, knowing that the now dependent client will have little choice but to agree. Coyotes argue that these unexpected new obstacles require more money, and may even hold migrants hostage until the families pay their increased smuggling fees.

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