Article: Vice News Mexico https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvn5z3/camp-pendleton-marines-migrant-human-smuggling

Headline:

"Inside a Massive Human Smuggling Ring Led by US Marines"

Byron Law knew what he was doing was illegal. But the money was too good to pass up. On the morning of July 3, 2019, the 20-year-old and his friend headed out for another run in Law’s black BMW, eager to make some extra cash before the long holiday weekend. With any luck, they’d be finished by lunch.

Law pulled onto a dirt patch on the side of the highway about seven miles north of the U.S.–Mexico border. Somewhere in the vast expanse of sand, shrubs, and granite rock, two men and a woman emerged from their hiding spot, ran down the hill, and hopped into the backseat of Law’s car. They each carried a backpack. Their shoes were covered in grass and dirt.

For the hundreds of migrants crossing into the U.S. without permission each day, the border itself is just the beginning: Next are a hundred miles of checkpoints on roads and highways that stretch well into the interior of Texas, Arizona, and California. To reach their destination, migrants rely on smugglers hiding them along the way, inside of dump trucks, tractor trailers, even coffins, to evade detection.

But Law and his friend weren’t just any smugglers. They were U.S. Marines, sworn to uphold the values and laws of the U.S.

Law “quite literally ran a booming criminal enterprise here at Camp Pendleton” during the spring and summer of 2019, a military prosecutor told a judge at the 20-year-old’s court martial hearing.

“Right under the nose of not just his command, but under the nose of military and federal law enforcement, he planned, coordinated, and executed the transportation of illegal aliens and the distribution of drugs for financial gain,” the prosecutor said. “It is equal parts shocking and disturbing to think that there were quite literally thousands of dollars of cartel money flowing through Camp Pendleton.”

Navy prosecutors fingered Rojas as the linchpin to the smuggling ring at Camp Pendleton. But Rojas insisted that the smuggling extended beyond him, a claim backed up by court martial records.

It’s impossible to know the full scale of corruption among uniformed personnel along the border, in part because U.S. officials would rather keep it quiet. Navy personnel and Marines almost never face charges in federal court. Instead, they are quietly prosecuted under the Navy justice system.

The judge sentenced Law to 18 months confinement. Salazar-Quintero received 12 months.

“The money was too easy, and that’s why deterrence is really what the government’s hitting on here with requesting this sentence,” a prosecutor told the judge at Salazar-Quintero’s court-martial. “Snapchat, text messaging, the ability to navigate with a GPS, make this crime so accessible to Marines in the border area.”

Rojas, the 20 year-old who recruited the Marines, was arrested eight months after Law and Salazar-Quintero. A judge sentenced him to 10 months in federal prison in February 2021, after he made a deal with prosecutors to tell them what he knew.

“I loved the amount of money that came with it,” Rojas told me. “Just like that money came, though, that money went—on my family, on my kids, on my baby momma, on weed, luxurious events, hotels, fancy restaurants, casinos. I was barely 20 and I knew I wanted to do something legit with the money, but I went blind with it.”

The smuggling continues.

Since the mass arrests in July 2019, the Navy has convicted four more Marines of smuggling migrants into the country. Border Patrol arrested a fifth on Christmas Day last year. The real number is likely far larger.

...................

Emily Green is a Mexico City-based journalist reporting on Mexico and Central America. She won the 2020 inaugural Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting for her story on This American Life about the human impact of the Trump administration's “Remain in Mexico” policy. https://www.emilytgreen.com/#:~:text=Emily%20Green%20is%20a%20Mexico,%E2%80%9CRemain%20in%20Mexico%E2%80%9D%20policy.

Q&A: Emily Green: In 2020, the first Pulitzer in Audio Reporting recognized 'The Out Crowd,' which analyzed President Trump's immigration policy. Freelancer Emily Green of Vice News contributed to the project, which aired on 'This American Life.' Learn more about her reporting process — and how she learned she had won a Prize she didn't even know she had been nominated for. https://www.pulitzer.org/article/qa-emily-green

Emily Green - https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/emily-green

Emily Green Twitter - https://twitter.com/emilytgreen

......