The business of smuggling illegal immigrants

AP/CBS:

mugglers who bring illegal immigrants into the U.S. are getting crucial help from seemingly legitimate businesses that supply them with cars, lodging, plane tickets and other services, knowing full well what's going on.

Investigators say the number of these corrupt businesses is small, but they play a significant role in helping illegal immigrants reach the country's interior.

The accomplices have included landlords and rental agents who provide homes for smugglers to hide immigrants; taxi drivers near the border who bring immigrants to the closest cities; used-car dealerships that let smugglers register vehicles under false names; and travel agencies that sell blocks of plane tickets for immigrants.

“At every stage along the way, a process has been taken over, corrupted, in order to facilitate the transportation” of illegal immigrants, said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, whose office has prosecuted such cases.

Authorities are unable to estimate the number of businesses helping smugglers but say the biggest concentration is in Arizona, the busiest illegal gateway into the United States. Immigrant smuggling in Arizona is believed to be a $1.7 billion-a-year business.

Businesses also are cooperating with smugglers in San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso, Texas.

Immigration agents said some of these accomplices are criminal operations through and through. But others are bona fide businesses willing to break the law now and then for the extra bucks.

Authorities have prosecuted only a modest number of businesses, saying smuggling operations are often family-run and difficult to infiltrate with informants or undercover officers. Also, recorded conversations are needed to prove that businesses knew they were breaking the law.

The businesses “are willfully blind to what on the face should be obvious,” said Alonzo Pena, chief of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona. But “we can't convict someone for willful blindness. We have to show an actual element of knowledge or intent.”

One success was a 2005 case in which undercover agents posing as smugglers were rented rooms at six motels in Mesa, Ariz. The motel operators were accused of coaching the agents on how to conceal their illegal activities.

In 2004 and 2005, 16 people associated with car lots in Arizona were convicted on various charges of helping smugglers.

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I am surprised the immigration authorities have not used the RICO statute to prosecute these cases. Conspiracy statues may also be applicable. Taking out the infrastructure of the immigrant smuggling operations should be similar to eliminating enemy rat lines for infiltrating into Iraq.