RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Across the deserts, canyons and moun­tains di­vid­ing the Unit­ed States and Mex­i­co, mi­grants con­tin­ue to risk their lives for the chance of a bet­ter fu­ture in North Amer­i­ca.

Some spend months work­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore pay­ing Mex­i­can car­tels be­tween US$4,000 and US$12,000 to smug­gle them across the bor­der.

But af­ter the Joe Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion tight­ened re­gion­al mi­gra­tion poli­cies in 2024—and US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump lat­er de­clared a na­tion­al emer­gency at the bor­der, boost­ing en­force­ment and re­strict­ing asy­lum ac­cess—il­le­gal cross­ings dropped sharply as much as 99 per cent.

Now, US au­thor­i­ties say the crack­down is fu­elling a new threat- a rise in co­caine traf­fick­ing as car­tels adapt to tougher bor­der con­trols and in­ten­si­fied fen­tanyl en­force­ment.

Dur­ing a high-lev­el re­port­ing tour host­ed by the US De­part­ment of State For­eign Press Cen­tre and at­tend­ed by jour­nal­ists from 13 coun­tries, in­clud­ing T&T, of­fi­cials warned that crim­i­nal net­works are con­stant­ly evolv­ing—shift­ing routes, chang­ing tac­tics and find­ing new ways to prof­it from des­per­a­tion on both sides of the bor­der.

No­gales, Ari­zona &

San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia

At ports of en­try stretch­ing from Ari­zona to Cal­i­for­nia, US of­fi­cials said crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions are rapid­ly chang­ing tac­tics, us­ing drones, tun­nels, hid­den ve­hi­cle com­part­ments and so­phis­ti­cat­ed sur­veil­lance sys­tems to move nar­cotics north­ward while con­tin­u­ing to ex­ploit vul­ner­a­ble mi­grants des­per­ate for a bet­ter life.

“Straight up, nar­co. That’s the biggest threat that we see here,” said Sid­ney Aki, di­rec­tor of Field Op­er­a­tions for the San Diego Field Of­fice of US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion (CBP) dur­ing a tour last week. In Cal­i­for­nia, the ef­fects of the fen­tanyl cri­sis were vis­i­ble on city streets, where peo­ple ap­peared trapped in ad­dic­tion, while across parts of Ari­zona, grow­ing home­less­ness un­der­scored the wider so­cial and eco­nom­ic pres­sures fac­ing bor­der com­mu­ni­ties.

Aki said metham­phet­a­mine re­mains the most com­mon­ly seized nar­cot­ic in Cal­i­for­nia, but co­caine traf­fick­ing has be­come in­creas­ing­ly promi­nent as au­thor­i­ties in­ten­si­fy ef­forts against fen­tanyl smug­gling.

“About close to 60 per cent of all the nar­cotics seized by US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion in the na­tion is seized here in Cal­i­for­nia,” he said dur­ing a brief­ing at the San Ysidro Port of En­try, one of the busiest bor­der cross­ings in the world.

Just one day ear­li­er, of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed 2,800 pounds of metham­phet­a­mine con­cealed in­side flat-screen tele­vi­sions aboard a trac­tor-trail­er en­ter­ing through Otay Mesa. He said as fen­tanyl en­force­ment in­ten­si­fied, car­tels di­ver­si­fied sup­ply chains and in­creased co­caine move­ment in­to the US mar­ket. Analy­sis of 2025 bor­der da­ta re­vealed that co­caine seizures at the US-Mex­i­co bor­der in­creased by about 35 per cent be­tween 2024 and 2025.

But while nar­cotics seizures con­tin­ue ris­ing, of­fi­cials say mi­grant en­coun­ters have fall­en sharply com­pared with the un­prece­dent­ed surges seen in re­cent years.

Ac­cord­ing to US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion sta­tis­tics, il­le­gal cross­ings peaked in De­cem­ber 2023. Since Jan­u­ary 2026, about 29,890 peo­ple have re­port­ed­ly been ap­pre­hend­ed at parts of the south­ern bor­der com­pared with rough­ly 2.14 mil­lion en­coun­ters record­ed through­out 2024.

Au­thor­i­ties cau­tion, how­ev­er, that “en­coun­ters” do not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent unique in­di­vid­u­als, as some mi­grants re­peat­ed­ly at­tempt cross­ings af­ter de­por­ta­tion.

Even so, the re­duc­tion has been sig­nif­i­cant enough to al­ter car­tel be­hav­iour.

“Don­ald Trump came in promis­ing a new ap­proach to the bor­der,” said CJ Kara­mar­gin, se­nior ad­vis­er to Re­pub­li­can Con­gress­man Juan Cis­co­mani of Ari­zona’s 6th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict.

“Just the promise of it was enough to change the be­hav­iour of car­tels. They knew that it wasn’t go­ing to be easy any longer.”

Kara­mar­gin said mi­gra­tion routes shift­ed as se­cu­ri­ty tight­ened.

“A porous bor­der didn’t af­fect just a bor­der com­mu­ni­ty like ours,” he said. “Mi­grants would come in, usu­al­ly not stay in Ari­zona … they would tran­sit through Ari­zona, so it would have an im­pact in oth­er states.”

Mi­grants flee­ing cri­sis

Co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port Group, Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, said for mi­grants flee­ing col­laps­ing economies, vi­o­lence or po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty, the risks re­main im­mense.

She said nowhere is that more ev­i­dent than in Venezuela’s on­go­ing eco­nom­ic col­lapse, which has dri­ven mil­lions from the coun­try in search of a bet­ter life.

Ram­nar­ine said that for some mi­grants from South Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Trinidad and To­ba­go has be­come a tem­po­rary stop along the route north. She said pri­or to Trump’s sec­ond term as Pres­i­dent, Venezue­lans ar­rived through Trinidad’s porous mar­itime bor­ders, find­ing short-term work be­fore at­tempt­ing the dan­ger­ous jour­ney through Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Mex­i­co.

Death, de­spair

in the desert

The US Bor­der Pa­trol Tuc­son Sec­tor utilis­es 3,000 agents to se­cure 262 miles of Ari­zona’s bor­der by in­ter­dict­ing nar­cotics, pre­vent­ing cross­ings and con­duct­ing life-sav­ing desert res­cues. But Su­per­vi­so­ry Bor­der Pa­trol Agent Jonathan Hu­log, dur­ing a brief­ing near No­gales, Ari­zona, warned that those promis­es of safe cross­ings made by the car­tel us­ing so­cial me­dia of­ten end in tragedy.

“Do not get fooled,” he said, warn­ing that Ari­zona’s desert ter­rain is one of the dead­liest sec­tions of the bor­der.

He said mi­grants cross­ing il­le­gal­ly face tow­er­ing moun­tain ranges, deep canyons, flash floods and tem­per­a­tures that can be­come fa­tal with­in hours.

“Peo­ple at­tempt­ing il­le­gal en­try of­ten face on­ly two out­comes—ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion, or death,” he said.

He said mi­grants con­tin­ue dy­ing in Ari­zona’s deserts from de­hy­dra­tion, ex­po­sure and ex­haus­tion, while oth­ers be­come trapped in drainage sys­tems dur­ing mon­soon flood­ing.

At the same time, smug­gling or­gan­i­sa­tions have be­come in­creas­ing­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed.

“Peo­ple fa­cil­i­tat­ing cross­ings al­so use tech­nol­o­gy,” Hu­log ex­plained.

Car­tels now de­ploy drones, GPS sys­tems and en­crypt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions to guide mi­grants through re­mote ar­eas while avoid­ing de­tec­tion from law en­force­ment.

He said the un­der­ground threat has al­so ex­pand­ed.

Chief Pa­trol Agent Justin De La Torre from San Diego Sec­tor Bor­der Pa­trol said more than 200 tun­nels have been dis­cov­ered along the bor­der over re­cent decades, in­clud­ing over 100 in the No­gales re­gion alone.

Some tun­nels con­tain re­in­forced struc­tures, light­ing and rail sys­tems. Oth­ers are crude hand-dug pas­sages con­nect­ing drainage sys­tems or sew­er net­works be­neath the bor­der.

A par­tial­ly con­struct­ed tun­nel was dis­cov­ered near No­gales on­ly last month.

In San Diego alone, CBP process­es rough­ly 250,000 peo­ple dai­ly—about one quar­ter of all in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers en­ter­ing the Unit­ed States through land bor­ders.

“We be­lieve in se­cu­ri­ty or bor­der se­cu­ri­ty,” De La Torre said. “Be­cause the more fo­cused we are on se­cu­ri­ty, the more ef­fi­cient the flow of le­git­i­mate and law­ful trade in­to the Unit­ed States.”

He said tech­nol­o­gy now dom­i­nates much of that ef­fort.

At ports of en­try such as San Ysidro, au­thor­i­ties use fa­cial bio­met­rics, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, ma­chine learn­ing, li­cence plate read­ers, ra­dio-fre­quen­cy iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems, non-in­tru­sive X-ray scan­ners and ca­nine de­tec­tion teams to iden­ti­fy high-risk trav­ellers and car­go.

Still, of­fi­cials ac­knowl­edged the crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions they face pos­sess vast­ly greater fi­nan­cial re­sources.

“Our op­er­at­ing bud­get is on­ly in the mil­lions com­pared to the ad­ver­sary in the bil­lions,” said Deputy Agent in Charge Rich White.

White said Ari­zona’s Bor­der Pa­trol sec­tor op­er­ates with an an­nu­al bud­get of rough­ly US$24 mil­lion to US$25 mil­lion, most of which is con­sumed by ba­sic op­er­a­tional costs, in­clud­ing ve­hi­cle main­te­nance and fu­el.

“When you re­al­ly think about how big we are and our mis­sion set, a few mil­lion dol­lars for an op­er­at­ing bud­get is noth­ing,” he said.

By con­trast, White said car­tels can spend hun­dreds of mil­lions on tun­nels, com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tems, ve­hi­cles and sur­veil­lance tech­nol­o­gy.

The ge­og­ra­phy it­self fur­ther com­pli­cates en­force­ment.

Ari­zona’s bor­der­lands in­clude re­mote wilder­ness, cliffs, canyons and moun­tains reach­ing el­e­va­tions close to 10,000 feet.

“There are parts where you have to hike ten miles through a canyon just to get near the bor­der,” White said.

“We lit­er­al­ly don’t have enough to cov­er every square inch of every bit of the bor­der at all times.”

Cor­rup­tion al­so re­mains a risk as some US of­fi­cers have pre­vi­ous­ly been caught as­sist­ing smug­gling op­er­a­tions, though he stressed those cas­es are ag­gres­sive­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Through­out the tour, US of­fi­cials sent a sin­gle mes­sage to mi­grants.

The bor­der has be­come hard­er to cross, more heav­i­ly mon­i­tored and in­creas­ing­ly dan­ger­ous. The mes­sage? Do not at­tempt to cross.