NORTH AMERICA : Mexican Police Getting Tough on Smugglers of Migrants

The 89 migrants aboard Pacific Transport Bus 148 were almost home free.

Cruising along Highway 2 just a few miles from the spot where California, Arizona and Mexico meet, they were nearing the end of a costly, arduous journey that had begun weeks--or months--before. Eighty of them had started out in El Salvador, six in the Dominican Republic, and three halfway around the world in India.

Their destination: Tijuana, and an illegal crossing into Southern California. The price: $700 to $1,500 each. Two Mexican migrant smugglers were also on board, to make sure their clients got their money’s worth.

Then, something happened for the first time in more than a year along this stretch of highway frequented by the smugglers: They got caught.

A special, 24-hour Mexican federal police patrol, which had begun in the state of Sonora just a few days before, stopped the bus. But even before the officers could climb aboard, the smugglers calmly approached the federal agents.

“One of them started saying, ‘No, no, it’s no problem. . . . If you let us pass, we’ll give you something--some money,’ ” recalled federal Judicial Police Commander Guillermo Martinez, who ordered the patrols.

In a human border trade that reportedly generates tens of millions of dollars a year, such bribes are common, according to independent analysts. But this time, there was a new commander in town, with new orders to target the smugglers, known in Mexican street slang as polleros (chicken traders) or coyotes. They are responsible for sneaking thousands of migrants from Mexico and throughout the world into the southern United States each year.

The stunned smugglers in Sonora were arrested on the spot, and this week a local judge in Mexicali ordered them jailed pending trial; Mexico deported the 89 migrants.

“Definitely, these are direct orders from our federal attorney general,” said Martinez, who took over federal law enforcement in Sonora’s border region two weeks ago. “We’re redoubling our efforts and uniting forces in an attempt to stop chicken traders.”

Last week’s arrests near the border town of San Luis Rio Colorado were not an isolated event. The following day, Martinez’s officers busted another busload of migrants headed for the U.S. and jailed the smugglers. And the day before, another police unit in Tijuana had arrested three chicken traders who had been paid to take 10 illegal migrants to Los Angeles.

The crackdown is partly the result of a two-day gathering that brought two-thirds of President Clinton’s Cabinet to Mexico City earlier this month. The meeting produced an agreement stating that both nations will “intensify their actions against criminals who profit from others’ hardships and invigorate activities to combat trafficking in migrants.”

The recent arrests are only the first concrete results of the Mexico-U.S. Binational Commission meeting.

Key Mexican ruling-party legislators are setting up a committee to draft a law making migrant smuggling an “organized crime” and increasing jail terms and fines for convicted chicken traders, who have been treated leniently in the past. The legislation, which is likely to be introduced in the Mexican Congress when it reconvenes in September, would sanction jail terms of up to 20 years for a crime now punishable by two to 10 years.

Some U.S. and Mexican analysts, though, are not so certain that the recent crackdown or the new laws will put a dent in the lucrative human smuggling trade.

Wayne Cornelius, director of U.S.-Mexican studies at UC San Diego, says law enforcement crackdowns serve only to push illegal crossings into more remote areas. Even Martinez agreed that the smugglers probably have abandoned his border region already.

“We want to make it very difficult for chicken traders to get by,” he said. “But a lot of them are going to look for new routes. . . . I don’t necessarily expect to catch more chicken traders on that same highway anytime soon.”