How to Catch Human Smugglers

¶ … violation of the immigration laws to "bring" an illegal alien into the United States. Can a defendant who does not essentially or technically cross the border with an illegal alien be found guilty under these laws? What must the prosecution prove?

It is definitely a violation to "bring" an illegal alien into the United States. This is typically referred to as human smuggling and can carry serious consequences. In the United States the primary organization responsible for regulating and prosecuting individuals who are associated with human smuggling is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE defines human smuggling as:

"Human smuggling is the importation of people into a country via the deliberate evasion of immigration laws. This includes bringing illegal aliens into a country, as well as the unlawful transportation and harboring of aliens already in a country illegally. Some smuggling situations may involve murder, rape and assault (Enforcement, N.d.).

ICE has a four step strategy to combat the human smuggling networks. This strategy is composed of (Enforcement, N.d.):

First, ICE pursues intelligence-driven investigations to target large-scale smuggling organizations regardless of where they operate. Particular emphasis is placed on smuggling rings that pose a national security risk, jeopardize lives or engage in violence, abuse, hostage-taking or extortion.

Second, ICE coordinates with partners at U.S. Customs and Border Protection to ensure aggressive investigation and prosecution of smuggling cases along the border.

Third, ICE targets all links in the smuggling chain, beyond the immediate smugglers. For example, ICE seeks to target the overseas recruiters and organizers, the fraudulent document vendors, and the transportation and employment networks that benefit from alien smuggling within the United States.

Finally, ICE will pursue legislation to increase penalties against organized smugglers and provide additional criminal offenses to better address spotters who assist criminals with smuggling aliens and contraband.

In many cases the network of human smuggling operations will have most elements that do not actually come in contact with law enforcement. The smugglers can lead the illegal immigrants up to the boarder without actually crossing it themselves. Although they are definitely accomplices in human smuggling, it can be difficult to catch and prosecute them. If a human smuggler is caught anywhere in the network, enforcement officials have many points to prove before the person can be prosecuted. For example, The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) provides a training manual that recommends that if a smuggler is caught, the points to prove include proving the smuggler has a financial or material gain, that they are smuggling someone who is not a resident of the country, that they are entering the country illegally, and the that the smuggler is fully aware that they are entering the country illegally (UNODC, 2010).