Mexico City - An estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants from South America, the Caribbean and Central America pay Mexican gangs to help them transit Mexico and cross into the United States every year, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said Wednesday. This illegal trade brings "extraordinary earnings" since each person pays 4,000 to 15,000 dollars. In total, this would mean some 2 to 7.5 billion dollars a year, the commission said.
The commission, which also said Mexican officials deport an estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants every year, released the report just two weeks after a high profile illegal transit case made headlines.
An armed commando stopped Mexican authorities transporting 37 illegal migrants to an immigration center, and disappeared with many of them. Eighteen of the group later resurfaced in the US.
"The earnings in the illegal trade in people can only be compared to those of arms trafficking, human trafficking for the purposes of exploitation and drug trafficking," the commission said.
The institution asked the Mexican Congress to implement legal reforms so that the state can prosecute offenders of its own accord and so that offenders can be punished more harshly.
The commission said it is essential that witnesses be protected and that migrants who are victims of human traffickers get the same legal protection that those who have been victims of trafficking for subsequent exploitation.
Every year, an estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrants enter the United States, most of them across the Mexico border. In 2005, US officials arrested and deported 1.2 million illegal immigrants, 85 per cent of them from Mexico. An estimated half a million manage to elude detection every year.
