VIP tickets to cross the border into Texas: Drug cartels are offering new, pricey options for asylum seekers

The ticket is a code that drug cartels give to their passengers after they have paid between $6,000 and $15,000. Migrants must say it correctly at the entrance to the tunnel that is part of the drainage network stretching from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, Texas — one of the most sought-after routes for clients of a VIP illegal migration package.

That's how USA Today describes it in a new article based on interviews with top Mexican state officials, federal law officers from both sides of the border, and migrants waiting to cross in camps along the Rio Grande.

The code is often delivered by cell phone at least minute, but there are many in use that can allow the individual to pass. Each code belongs to a different "travel agency," as the outlet sarcastically named the cartels involved in smuggling migrants.

That way, neither other criminals nor corrupt officials will harass them or prevent them from passing through that illegal entry route to the United States.

With the increase in security forces at the U.S. border ordered by the state administrations receiving the highest influx of immigrants, and stricter policies such as President Joe Biden's recent executive order barring migrants from claiming asylum when certain thresholds are reached, the few illegal entry points penetrable by criminal groups have increased in cost.

In fact, experts interviewed by the outlet predict that the return on investment in human trafficking has outpaced that of drug trafficking, as per the article.

"Criminals have shifted from their primary business, which was drug trafficking," said Arturo Velasco, head of the anti-kidnapping unit at the Chihuahua attorney general's office. "Now 60 to 70% of their focus is migrant smuggling.

"A kilo of cocaine might bring in $1,500, but the risk is very high. The cost-benefit of trafficking a person is $10,000, $12,000, $15,000."

Latino migrants might be able to pay this with remittances sent from their relatives residing in the U.S., but there are also people from other places to cross from Mexico.

The country's National Migration Institute reported that at least 1.39 million migrants from all over the world have entered Mexico in 2024 through May, most of them trying to reach the United States without proper documentation.

The top origin countries of migrants traveling through Mexico to the U.S. were Venezuela (377,401 individuals), Guatemala (209,540), Honduras (144,499), Ecuador (136,699), Haiti (107,432), Colombia (70,371), El Salvador (52,636), Nicaragua (45,364), Peru (28,167), Cuba (27,404), Senegal (20,847), Guinea (19,922), Dominican Republic (16,228), China (13,780), Brazil (11,058), Mauritania (9,757), India (8,914), and Angola (7,037).