Human Smuggling on the Rise in AZ.

Four recent cases in which armed assailants tried to kidnap illegal immigrants from their smugglers highlights an increase in violence in the human trafficking trade; three people were killed last week north of Tucson in what authorities believe was the latest example of armed smugglers trying to steal migrants from rival traffickers.^[1] We have mentioned this previously.^[2]

Kidnappings can be very profitable for smugglers, with low costs and ransoms typically ranging from $1,200 to $2,500 per person.^[3] The smugglers don't have to pay any employees, drivers or guides to lead the migrants across the border.^[4] "They lose a lot of overhead costs, the…fees….collected by the rip-off crews are [pure profit]." said Angel Rascon, who supervises smuggling investigations in Arizona for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.^[5]

Smugglers have stolen clients from rivals mere feet from the Arizona-Mexico border, and have even raided rival gangs' stash houses in metropolitan Phoenix, which is a launching point for moving illegal immigrants to jobs across the country.^[6] Arizona is the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border, it leads all other border states in migrant-kidnappings.^[7] Once kidnapped, the migrants are often beaten, tortured, murdered, forced into prostitution^[8] or sometimes simply left on the street.

Human smuggling is prosecuted under 8 U.S.C. § 1324, the potential punishment can be up to 10 years in prison if the crime was committed for the purpose of commercial or private financial gain.

The U.S. government has placed a high priority on aggressively prosecuting human smuggling and trafficking, we have also discussed this previously.

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^[1] Jacques Billeaud, Smuggling Could be Behind Ariz. Killings, AP (via Houston Chronicle), February 14, 2007.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.; see also Roxana Hegeman, Suspected Human Smugglers Indicted, AP (via Hutchinson News), February 08, 2007
^[4] Billeaud, supra note 1.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] 8 U.S.C. § 1328 (2006); 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a) (2006).