Migrant-smuggling behind spike in homicides, mayor says

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The drug cartels’ fight for control of migrant-smuggling is leading to an increase in homicides in Juarez, Mexico, the mayor of that border city says.

Juarez recorded 106 homicides in June, according to Chihuahua state Public Safety Secretary Gilberto Loya. That was an increase over the 99 murders reported in May and comparable to Tijuana’s 113 homicides during the first 28 days of June.

“It’s human trafficking that brings more pressure on us in addition to the drug sales and trafficking,” Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar said this week. “This reduction (in migrant encounters) we’ve had has generated a stronger dispute on that issue, and we’re working on that with other levels of government.”

Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped significantly in the past few months and last month reached their lowest levels in three years, according to national news reports .

Border experts attribute that to a Mexican crackdown on foreign nationals traveling atop cargo trains and hidden on commercial vehicles . The Biden administration’s threat to close the border to asylum-seekers without online appointments once encounters top 2,500 a day for seven days straight is also having an effect.

But, as advocates in the U.S. warned, migrants are seeking the help of smugglers to enter the United States. The smugglers, in turn, are killing each other off for a bigger share of this market. Last week, Chihuahua state police found the bodies of six men in a makeshift camp near Chihuahua City. They also found two migrants a short distance away, injured by gunfire.

Earlier in June, the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office confirmed bodies found on the side of a highway were those of five ride-share drivers missing in the border city of Ojinaga since May 30. The drivers were likely transporting migrants without paying the “cartel tax,” state officials told Mexican media.

In April, Chihuahua police picked up eight naked bodies near another highway. State Police Secretary Loya linked the slayings to migrant-trafficking.

“It’s not like we would like, but in the past 15 days we managed to reduce homicides,” Juarez Municipal Police Chief Cesar Omar Muñoz said on Monday.

He said his police force received more equipment and vehicles, including all-terrain vehicles and are increasing patrols in conflict areas. Those include working-class neighborhoods across the border from Sunland Park, New Mexico, to the west, and south of Socorro and San Elizario, Texas, to the east. Fast-growing areas in south and southeast Juarez also present public safety concerns.

“We will have more presence in places we already know of,” Munoz said. “Of course, the arrest of people who are responsible for these actions also help a lot. […] If there are no arrests and firearms seizures, we will not achieve (results).”

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