The United States has been at the top frequency option for international migrants since 1970. Regular migration accounts for many migrants, but it is estimated that 10 million to 12 million immigrants are unauthorized, or irregular, immigrants—about a quarter of the immigrant population.
Illegal immigration has been a major area of public concern in the United States for the past few election cycles, which President Donald Trump has used to fuel his broad anti-immigration campaign. In 2024, 61 percent of voters said that immigration was very important to their vote. This number increased by 9 percentage points from the 2020 presidential election and 13 points more from the 2022 congressional election. This issue is very important to Republican voters. In 2024, 82 percent of Trump supporters said immigration was very important to their vote, 21 points higher than in the 2020 presidential election.
The United States has been at the top frequency option for international migrants since 1970. Regular migration accounts for many migrants, but it is estimated that 10 million to 12 million immigrants are unauthorized, or irregular, immigrants—about a quarter of the immigrant population.
Illegal immigration has been a major area of public concern in the United States for the past few election cycles, which President Donald Trump has used to fuel his broad anti-immigration campaign. In 2024, 61 percent of voters said that immigration was very important to their vote. This number increased by 9 percentage points from the 2020 presidential election and 13 points more from the 2022 congressional election. This issue is very important to Republican voters. In 2024, 82 percent of Trump supporters said immigration was very important to their vote, 21 points higher than in the 2020 presidential election.
The Trump administration has targeted immigration on many fronts, both formal and informal. This includes a full test stand up of the visa lottery program under the Diversity Immigrant Visa program, which was established in 1990 to ensure that applicants from underrepresented countries have access to the US immigration system.
Administration too extended The US travel ban from 19 to 39 countries, including many Caribbean and African countries that were previously under sanctions. Cases of reduction of foreign-born citizenship will also now be shown uptick from an average of several cases per year to 100-200 hemodialysis cases per month sent to central government creditors.
Furthermore, starting on April 24, 2025, the Trump administration to be revoked temporary legal status of 530,000 people including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans in the United States. The measure cuts a two-year amnesty granted to immigrants under the Biden administration, who were allowed to enter the country if they had American sponsors. A similar crackdown is also being placed on the US-Mexico border, used by immigrants from all over the world—including from Latin America, Central and South Asian countries—to enter the United States. On January 20, 2025, Trump suspension access to asylum through executive order, ending what he called the “invasion” of the United States.
The White House, along with much of the US media, has established irregular immigration as an international crime, for which a strong law enforcement approach is required. The mass arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the United States is a manifestation of this approach. Lost in this view is that many irregular migrants are themselves victims and are at great risk of abuse. Migrants face torture, extortion, abuse, fraud, imprisonment and even death by smugglers.
Human trafficking is a highly exploitative practice, but it has failed to gain sympathy within the United States because the general consensus is that immigrants choose to cross the border illegally. If you ask most immigrants, they will tell you that they had no choice but to leave their country. Can actions resulting from that desperation be considered consensual?
Until 2022, most migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border flew into Mexico from the Caribbean and South America taking advantage of Mexico’s visa-free policy. After increasing pressure from the United States, Mexico made its immigration policies more difficult, to that needs it visas from more nations, including from Venezuela, Brazilians, and Ecuadorians. This may eliminate the option of flying to Mexico and then surrendering to authorities in the United States to claim asylum.
Compression has also been done on the ocean floor way. Therefore, the only viable option left for migrants traveling north to the United States is to travel overland—a long and grueling journey where many go through the Darién Gap on the Colombia-Panama border. A hike up the Darién Gap can take 10 days or more and involve not only natural hazards, but also smugglers and gangs who blackmail and sexually assault vulnerable migrants. This includes The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Gulf Clan, a militant group and the largest drug trafficker in Colombia.
As the ropes tighten on the routes to the United States, more and more immigrants are now using the services of smugglers to facilitate their journeys. It is estimated that two out of five migrants are using the services of smugglers. This number is expected to increase as geographic and political barriers to migration between countries increase. It is a proven fact in every jurisdiction that smugglers are perpetrators of violence.
A reading I ran a human smuggling business in Pakistan and discovered that smugglers exploit the desperation of vulnerable migrants; misinforming them about the inherent dangers of travel; and robbing, threatening, harassing and torturing immigrants. This study focused on the Pakistan-Iran-Turkey-Europe route, but the same investigation conducted with Latin American migrants found that nearly half of all respondents surveyed had used the services of smugglers in 2022. A third of respondents who used smugglers identified them as perpetrators of abuse. Only 6 percent of respondents saw smugglers as a source of protection.
Smugglers often cooperate with law enforcement agencies that operate on certain routes. In report on the Pakistan-to-Europe route, law enforcement cooperation emerged as a key reason why smugglers can operate with impunity. Smugglers are giving kicks to officials based on immunity from abuse. Research by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows that human trafficking cannot occur without corruption.
Research specifies nine areas where corruption is frequent: recruitment of migrants, production of fraudulent documents, border crossing, transportation, transportation through airports, accommodation, investigation, prosecution and prosecution of traffickers, and interactions between migrants and traffickers. There have been acts of corruption information close to all smuggling routes.
Illegal smuggling services are web-based and opportunistic, which means they are flexible, adaptable and resource-intensive. Smugglers operate as a series of small networks that control their own territories along the route, each with its own agents and ties to law enforcement. In fact, groups of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border from the Caribbean and South America will be passed from one sub-network to another, each connecting and controlling its territory along the route to form a single smuggling network.
It is self-development cycle where former migrants sometimes become smugglers because of the prospect of making quick money and the ability to develop personal relationships and develop trust with potential migrants. Human trafficking has always been a very profitable criminal enterprise. Globally, human trafficking as a business can be value $10 billion or more per year.
A more holistic approach is needed to address the issue of human trafficking, rather than populist slogans and indiscriminate law enforcement. Immigrants should not only be described in a way that shows criminality and illegality. Instead, the issue should be reformed from a law enforcement to a human rights issue—and any approach must be consistent with the United States’ obligations under international human rights law. Law enforcement officials must be sensitized to the unique needs of vulnerable migrants.
