human smuggling
Last updatedWhat to know
“Human smuggling,” sometimes called “migrant smuggling,” involves illegally transporting someone across a border (usually an international border) to a state or nation where the individual is not a national or permanent resident, for financial or other material gain.
Those being smuggled are at risk of abuse and exploitation during the process, and as such, human smuggling is often confused with human trafficking. Individuals or their relatives often incur significant debt in order to procure the payment that smugglers require, rendering them subject to further exploitation by the smuggler, which can lead to human trafficking. Smuggling is usually transnational and is a way for migrants to enter a country, while trafficking involves coercion and may occur within the victim’s nation of permanent residence. Trafficking is also a crime against the individual being trafficked, while smuggling is a crime against the state.
“Smuggler” may be used with or without “migrant” preceding it. A number of slang terms exist for migrant smugglers, including:
- Pollero/Coyote — a person who smuggles migrants across the border from Mexico into the United States
- Snakehead — a person who smuggles migrants from China into the United States
Additional resources
- The process of migrant smuggling (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
- Data on smuggling of migrants (Migration Data Portal)
- A human smuggler, and the wall that will make him rich (USA Today)
- Border Crisis: Coyote Cartel Controlling Migrant Passage (Rolling Stone)
- Inside The Hidden World Of Immigrant Smuggling (NPR)
Summary
“Human smuggling,” sometimes called “migrant smuggling,” involves illegally transporting someone across a border (usually an international border) to a state or nation where the individual is not a national or permanent resident, for financial or other material gain.
Human smuggling is often confused with human trafficking, but there is a distinction: Smuggling is a crime against the state, while trafficking is a crime against the individual being trafficked.