Migrant Smuggling Data and Research

outes and methods, as well as border crossing fees charged by smugglers, such
data are never made available for academic research purposes. Furthermore,
official data when published in government reports do not distinguish between
migrants who crossed the border with peers, on their own, or with the help of a
smuggler, thus making it impossible for inferential analysis of migrant smuggling
activities.
Although there are no data in the United States that pertain directly to
human smuggling activities, let alone on smugglers, there are data on illegal
migration, which researchers have been using to derive or estimate the volumes
of migrants being smuggled into the United States and analyse their demographic
profiles.
Apprehension records collected by US Border Patrol (USBP)
The USBP maintains a database of all individual apprehensions made by
border patrol agents. Aside from demographic information taken at the time of
an arrest, such as sex, age, country of citizenship, and (if a Mexican national)
state of birth, agents also record where the arrest takes place and ask if the
apprehended migrant sought assistance from a smuggler and how much was
paid for the smuggling service. Although the Government of the United States
publishes aggregate statistics from this data source, the underlying disaggregated
data are not made available for academic research.
Researchers who are privy to this data source have also found serious
limitations (Roberts et al., 2010). Apprehended migrants often do not reveal that
they are being smuggled because smugglers, once identified, may face criminal
charges in the United States. Migrant smuggling relies on social networks within
which both clients and smugglers interact. It is uncommon for migrants to
maintain personal relationships with smugglers because these smugglers may
be referred by friends or relatives who have already established trust. As Roberts
et al. (2010) found in their analysis of smuggling costs resulting from intensified
border enforcement, historically, roughly 80 per cent of all apprehension records
do not contain information on the use of smugglers, and about 94 per cent do not
contain information on smuggling cost. Moreover, there are significant variations
in the smuggling recording rates across different USBP sectors or stations, which
may reflect variability in patrol agents’ field interrogation practices or actual
variations in the number of migrants who use smuggling services (ibid.).
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