Report examines Central American human smuggling

A new report has re-examined the role transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) play in Central American human smuggling.

The report was undertaken by the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) analysis, operated by the RAND Corporation on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security. It stated that TCOs are not the only actors along the smuggling routes from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to the United States, generating between $200 million and $2.3 billion for human smugglers in 2017.

“We learned that human smuggling involves many different types of actors and that we could not credibly distinguish most criminal organizations’ activities and revenues from those of other actors, including ad hoc groups and independent operators, that engage in human smuggling,” Victoria Greenfield, lead author on the report and a senior economist at RAND, said. “At best, we could provide a broad range for the revenues to all types of human smugglers.”

RAND’s work asserts human smuggling involves many other types of actors operating independently or as part of ad hoc groups while also determining drug-trafficking TCOs collect taxes from migrants who pass through their territories, ranging from an estimated $30 million to $180 million in 2017.

“Providing the Department of Homeland Security with a better understanding of how TCOs and other actors that participate in human smuggling are structured, do business and are financed could help inform efforts to investigate and disrupt them and to make better decisions about how to allocate resources to those efforts,” Blas Nuñez-Neto, a co-author and senior policy researcher at RAND, said.