Mexico: smugglers use bracelets to track migrants as they cross US border

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Criminal groups that bring people into US reportedly document payment status on the plastic bands

Along the banks of the Rio Grande in the scrubby grassland near Penitas, south-east Texas, hundreds of colored plastic wristbands ripped off by migrants litter the ground, signs of what US border officials say is a growing trend among powerful drug cartels and smugglers to track people paying to cross unlawfully into the United States.

The plastic bands – red, blue, green, white – some labeled “arrivals” or “entries” in Spanish, are discarded after migrants cross the river on makeshift rafts, according to a Reuters witness. Their use has not been widely reported before.

Some migrants are trying to evade border agents, others are mostly Central American families, or young children traveling without parents who turn themselves in to officials, often to seek asylum protections because of dangers in their home countries.

Border patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector, which spans more than 34,000 sq miles along Texas-Mexico border, have recently encountered immigrants wearing the bracelets during several apprehensions, said Matthew Dyman, a spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The “information on the bracelets represents a multitude of data that is used by smuggling organizations, such as payment status or affiliation with smuggling groups”, Dyman told Reuters.

The differing smuggling techniques come as Joe Biden’s administration has sought to reverse restrictive immigration polices set up by his predecessor, Donald Trump. But a recent jump in border crossings has Republicans warning loudly and repeatedly that the easing of hardline policies will lead to an immigration crisis.

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/13/mexico-smugglers-migrant-bracelets-us-border