Smugglers Go Digital: Online Guides Fuel Dangerous U.S. Border Crossings

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A TikTok video shows the route a migrant would have to travel from central Mexico to Los Angeles, California. The itinerary designed by smugglers combines transfers by car, small plane, and finally crossing the border by boat. Departures are announced from Tehuacán, Puebla, showing the logistics of these illegal journeys, the U.S. Embassy warned in a message on its official social media with the hashtag #NoTeArriesgues.

However, accounts proliferate on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and TikTok where smugglers show how, for payments ranging from $8,000 to $15,000, migrants can be transported in all-terrain vehicles to cities in Arizona and California, avoiding grueling and dangerous treks through the desert.

“Here are the six chickens that entered through Sonoyta. They didn’t walk at all. Right now, we’re going to deliver Gabriela,” says Instagram user @Diegotapia644, who runs propaganda for the chicken smugglers on social media.

In some videos, before crossing the wall through a gap cut by the traffickers themselves, migrants state the date and time they are crossing and are also interviewed to explain where they are from and how they have been treated.

“June 24, 2025, crossing the wall through Sonoyta, Sonora, code 63,” says a criminal, who opens the fake door in a section of the fence through which two men and four women enter, camouflaged and carrying water cans painted black to avoid glare from the sun.

In another video, they boast about the people who will be illegally crossed. They identify themselves as migrants from the Middle East, Asia, and South America. They are shown eating pizzas and saying they have been treated very well, so they recommend their services.

All these people are recruited from the center and south of the country, mainly from Tapachula, Chiapas; Villahermosa, Tabasco; Mexico City; and Monterrey, Nuevo León. They are also brought in from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Honduras, Colombia, Suriname, Costa Rica, Panama, and Cuba—”from any nationality that is needed,” smugglers boast.

Currently, due to border surveillance, including by the US military and the Mexican National Guard in the urban areas of Tijuana and Mexicali, Baja California; San Luis Río Colorado, Nogales, and Agua Prieta, Sonora, the crossings occur through the most inhospitable and dangerous regions, such as the mountains and the desert.

Migrants are exposed to greater risks, such as those posed by rival criminal groups, harmful wildlife such as poisonous spiders and snakes, bears, coyotes, and felines like the puma. But once across the border, there are also the Minutemen, who are quick to shoot them if they cross private property.

According to official records from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), illegal crossings along the southwest border have fallen sharply during the first 234 days of President Donald J. Trump’s administration. For example, in May, ICE detained 8,725 undocumented migrants, a 93% reduction compared to May 2024, when 117,905 migrants were counted.