Human Smugglers at the Border Turn to TikTok

The videos roll through TikTok in 30-second flashes. Migrants trek in camouflage through desert terrain. Dune buggies roar up to the US-Mexico border barrier. Families with young children pass through gaps in the wall. Laced with emojis, the videos posted by smugglers offer a simple promise: If you don't have a visa in the US, trust us—we'll get you over safely. "With God's help, we're going to continue working to fulfill the dreams of foreigners," wrote one enterprising smuggler.

• High-tech outreach: As legal pathways to the US have been slashed and criminal groups are raking in money from migrant smuggling, social media apps like TikTok have become an essential tool for both smugglers and migrants. The videos offer a rare look inside an elusive industry and the narratives used by trafficking networks to fuel migration north, per the AP. Smugglers say new technologies allow networks to be more agile and expand their reach to new customers as President Trump ramps up a crackdown at the border.

• The videos: Hundreds examined by the AP feature thick wads of cash; people crossing through the border fence; helicopters and airplanes supposedly used by human smugglers known as coyotes; smugglers cutting open cactuses in the desert for migrants to drink from; and even crops of lettuce with text reading "The American fields are ready!" The videos are often layered over heavy northern Mexican music with lyrics waxing romantically about being traffickers.
• History: Using social media to facilitate migration took off around 2017 and 2018, when activists built huge WhatsApp groups to coordinate the first major migrant caravans traveling from Central America to the US, according to George Mason University professor Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera. Later, smugglers began to infiltrate those chats, expanding to Facebook and Instagram.
• Case study: "In this line of work, you have to switch tactics," said a woman named Soary, part of a network bringing migrants from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso, Texas. "TikTok goes all over the world." Soary, 24, began smuggling when she was 19, using her truck to pick up migrants who'd recently jumped the border. Despite the risks involved, she said it earned her more as a single mom than a previous job doing hair extensions.

• Warnings: The illicit ads have fueled concern among international authorities like the UN's International Organization for Migration, which warned in a report about the use of the technology that "networks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and evasive, thus challenging government authorities to address new, nontraditional forms of this crime."
• TikTok: The platform, for its part, says it strictly prohibits human smuggling and reports such content to law enforcement.

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