More Employers Hire Illegal Aliens Direct From Mexico, Pay Smuggling Cost

"When Pedro Lopez Vazquez crossed illegally into the United States last week, he was not heading north to look for a job. He already had one. His future employer even paid $1,000 for a smuggler to help Vazquez make his way from the central Mexican city of Puebla to Aspen, Colo," the Washington Post reports. His story is not unusual. A growing number of U.S. employers and migrants are tapping into an underground employment network that matches one with the other, often before the migrants leave home . . . 'It started out more explicitly, where (meatpacking) companies used to have buses to transport people to come up, and they would advertise directly in Mexico,' [said Darcy Tromanhauser]. 'Now I think that happens more informally.'" According to the paper, "The few cases that are prosecuted, however, highlight how lucrative a business recruiting undocumented workers has become. In one case, a single smuggler allegedly earned $900,000 over 15 months placing 6,000 migrants in jobs at Chinese restaurants across the upper Midwest."

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