Border Chief Says Smugglers Just Drop Migrants Off the Border, With Bracelets to Track Them

By Mary Anne Webber (staff@latinpost.com) First Posted: Mar 30, 2021 08:50 PM EDT

Honduran asylum seekers wait to register at a migrant camp at the U.S.-Mexico border on February 23, 2021 in Matamoros, Mexico. U.S. immigration authorities have begun allowing some asylum seekers with active cases into the U.S. in a reversal of the Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration policy. (Photo : John Moore/Getty Images)

Deputy Border Chief Raul Ortiz says migrant smugglers just drop people off near the border, with migrant facilities holding way over their capacity.

"Our facilities were never designed to hold people for more than a couple of days," Ortiz was quoted in an NBC News report.

He pleaded with migrants not to come right now to the United States, while facing a 5,000 average migrant encounters.

Colored Bracelets

Meanwhile, hundreds of colored plastic wristbands were being ripped off migrants, which U.S. border officials say as a growing trend among powerful drug cartels and smugglers to track people paying to cross illegally into the United States, according to The Guardian report.

The use of the colored plastic bands, with labels "arrivals" or "entries," in Spanish has not been widely reported before.

Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector recently faced migrants wearing the bracelets during several arrests, according to spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection Matthew Dyman.

"Information on the bracelets represents a multitude of data that is used by smuggling organizations, such as payment status or affiliation with smuggling groups," Dyman was quoted in a Reuters report.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, said that the colored bracelets sign that organized criminal groups are becoming more sophisticated with their actions.

Cardinal Brown that this might be a money-making scheme, keeping track of those paid or not.

However, migrant experts say that criminal groups in the northern Mexico have long used systems to log which migrants already paid for the right to be in their territory.

One migrant in Reynosa showed a picture of a purple wristband he was wearing. The migrants spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The migrant said that the bracelet would protect those who have it against kidnapping or extortion, adding that he paid $500 for his bracelet.

One smuggler also confirmed the migrant's story, saying that it is a design to keep track who has paid for the right to travel in the cartel-controlled territory.

Incoming Migrants

The United States border officials have reported more than 100,000 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, marking the highest monthly total historic surge since mid-2019. It is also a proof of a growing crisis.

The month increase from January to February shows a whopping surge of 28 percent, with about 9,500 of those migrants being unaccompanied migrant children.

This was the first time the number has exceeded 6,000 since June 2019, according to a Forbes report.

Peak migration system usually arrives in May.

More than 19,000 migrants were detained by border agents over the first week of March, while the White House refuses to identify the situation as a crisis.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the situation is challenging.

WATCH: Migrants, smugglers cutting through new Arizona border wall - from azfamily powered by 3TV & CBS5AZ

Tags Smugglers, Migrant, border