Homeland Security said Friday that stepped-up efforts to target the cartels that control migrant smuggling at the U.S.-Mexico border are paying off, with as many as 900 people a day derailed from their plans to cross.
Slammed by record border chaos, the department in recent months has announced operations to disrupt cartels’ finances and to increase investigations and prosecutions of smugglers.
The result is more than 30,000 “law enforcement actions” aimed at smuggling operations in Latin America, with some 2,000 smugglers arrested over eight weeks.
Smugglers have had to adapt, officials said.
“They changed the routes used to smuggle humans.