pollero, sneak them in, smuggling cartels, don’t really have a choice

Migrants’ Despair Is Growing at U.S. Border. So Are Smugglers’ Profits.

Only a handful of asylum seekers are let across the border each day. Many are now weighing the risks of hiring “polleros” to sneak them in.

REYNOSA, Mexico — As the human smugglers stalk the bus stations, migrant shelters and twisting streets of this Mexican border town, they have no trouble collecting clients like Julian Escobar Moreno.

The Honduran migrant arrived in Reynosa, Mexico, intending to apply for asylum in the United States. But new policies north of the border have instead driven him into the hands of the city’s smuggling cartels, whose business is booming.

“I honestly don’t want to cross illegally, but I don’t really have a choice,” said Mr. Moreno, 37.

pollero

A very hated and notorious person that smuggles Mexicans into the United States of America. Pollero literally means chicken hearder for the way illegal immigrants, known as, " pollos ," walk behind them through the harsh border region like a big bag of chicken feed.

The pollero just abandoned the Mexicanos when he saw La Migra in the distance.