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AMB: Guatemalan-Belize border. Gravel crunching underfoot, car sounds.
Narr: At the end of the Western Highway, one of only three highways in Belize, there is a border crossing between Belize and Guatemala called Benque Viejo del Carmen. It is here that this story of Chinese human smuggling begins. The official crossing at Benque Viejo is a model of bureaucratic efficiency. To enter Belize, cars pass through covered lanes and are inspected by border police. Money changers mill around the parking lot, ready to exchange Guatemalan quetzals for Belizean dollars.
There is another border crossing, an unofficial one, only yards away from the border patrol. It looks curiously like a hiking trail carved through the grass and trees. The bush obscures where the trail leads, and a chain-link fence separates it from the official crossing.
AX:
4:11
Hey, can I ask you a question?
Yes, ma'am.
There's a trail running down this way. It likes people walk through. Can you get to Guatemala walking the trail?
Yes. Just follow the trail down here.
On this side of the fence or the other side?
On the other side of the fence. Yeah, you can walk down. Just by the riverside. There's a riverside. There's a walk. You can just walk down. It is the borderline. Just like the wetbacks they do, the Mexican side. Just like that, they walk.
Do you ever see people walking?
Yes. By that gate over there, they enter that way and the come this way running running.
Narr: Unofficial border crossings like this one are important stops along the smuggling route for Chinese traveling to the US. To get here, the Chinese travel a meandering route, crisscrossing the globe by land, air, and sea through Russia, Europe, and sometimes Africa, before finally arriving to Guatemala. From here they move through Belize and up into Mexico, and then on to the US. The complicated route is a necessity of the business…as US security has tightened, the smugglers' methods have become more sophisticated. The Chinese are escorted by an international network of smugglers, who work collaboratively and hand off the Chinese to the next smuggler as they complete each leg of the trip.
AMB: Sounds of crunching leaves, birds, bugs.
Narr: One of the money changers, Jose Romero, agrees to show me the trail. The Rio Mopan churns and roars to the right, while on the left, the chain-link fence seems to shield us from the guards at the official border crossing.
AMB: Moving water of the Rio Mopan
Narr: Jose Romero says there is a lot of business conducted using this trail.
AX: [11:30] They use this trail, some Guatemalan people, they use this trail to buy chicken, you know, like chicken chicken, like qwack qwak. Actual chicken, live chicken, so they can sell on the Guatemalan side for a higher price. That's why you can see on the trail, with the vehicle coming in, then there are some guys come in to pick it up. They drive here. This is where they park. They load the chicken here. The Guatemalans come. They pick up the crates of chicken and they walk to Guatemalan side.
Narr: It's only a little more complicated for Illegal migrants. They can get guides, known locally as a coyotes, to take them across the border, for only 50 Belizean dollars, or 25 US.
AX: It is very simple to go through here. It is not very dangerous. You see, because we came here. It is quick money. Sometimes they do three persons, two persons, they call it a day.
Narr: All of this goes while the border patrol stand, divided by the chain-link fence, less than 100 yards away from the action.
AX: Sometimes we don't see them. It is hard to see them from the bushes. But we will see them when they are going out.
You see where that bike is over there? That is where they exit, or they enter.
6:08
Yeah, it's illegal. If the police see them, they will charge them. But we have police coming every day, but they are so lucky. The time they are going out, no police is coming by. They are so lucky.
Narr: This trail is just one of many paths that are used to illegally enter Belize. Most of the illegal traffic is from Latin America, but the country's porous borders are also used by Chinese human smugglers, known in Chinese as se tao, or snakeheads, as a route to the US. Good smugglers, the expensive ones, run a full-service operation. They escort the Chinese each step of the way, providing food, lodging and transportation. In Belize, they even bail out the Chinese if they are caught and detained by immigration. Once the Chinese are released, they head back on the road towards the US.
But the Chinese don't usually get caught—the smugglers only use Belize as a short stopover. Theresa Chavarria is a Senior Immigration Official with the Belize Department of Immigration.
AX: [Theresa Chavarria] They come for a short period, and then they disappear. So we believe they are coming north. They are coming through Guatemala. They are going through Belize and coming up north.
Narr: Once they cross the Guatemalan border into Belize, the Chinese are escorted through the country by local smugglers. Chavarria believes that the smugglers are members of the Chinese Belizean community. In a tiny country of only 300,000, there are a surprisingly large number of Chinese, over 3 percent, who run many of the grocery stores and fast-food joints in the country.
AX: [Theresa Chavarria] I think that the Chinese Belizeans are involved. It is a money-making thing. They see that they can make money.
Narr: And it's good money. The Chinese pay between 60 to 80 thousand dollars to be smuggled from China into the United States for the whole trip. Depending on how far the smuggler takes the Chinese, they can earn anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars to escort the Chinese through the Belize leg. It isn't hard to move across the borders. According an official with the Immigration Department, only 65 officers patrol the borders of Belize. Beyond that, Belize is known among locals and journalists for its crooked government officials.
AX: I'm not aware of that, but like anywhere, all over the world, there would be somebody wanting to make money. Somebody wanting to make money. And making fraudulent passports, fraudulent visas. And if these are people who want to get out, who want to reach north, they will purchase these visas.
Narr: But with the microphone off, an immigration official said quote—"There are temptations. An officer is weak. Someone offers 2,000 to help with a person. It is a temptation." The official emphasized that salaries are low—between $250 to $500 U.S. per month. The officer also made a point to say—quote—"Belize is not different. The Mexicans do it. The US does it."
AMB: The village of Douglas, mosquitoes, birds.
Narr: It's dusk in Douglas, a little village that lies next to the Rio Hondo, the river that divides Mexico and Belize to the north. Locals know it as a spot where goods and people are smuggled between Mexico and Belize. Chinese smugglers use unofficial crossings like Douglas to take Chinese migrants across the border into Mexico. To get there, you turn left at a bus stop off the Northern highway, onto a 3-mile path cut that turns from asphalt to gravel to dirt, and literally stops at the river's edge. The sun is setting quickly, and as with most tropical countries the light falls quickly into darkness.
Two guys with bikes and a gaggle of kids immediately show up to see what is going on. One of the guys, in a white t-shirt and jeans, doesn't seem surprised to see me, but asks if I have arrived by myself.
AX: Only you come?
How long I come?
Only you come?
Only me, just by myself.
Narr: The guy who questions me seems both confused and suspicious of my presence there. He and his shaggy-haired friend stare as I take pictures and look around. Except for the clearing where the road ends, the river's edge is lined with trees and sugarcane fields. But unlike the rushing water of the Rio Mopan at the Guatemalan border, the water here is still. Little canoes are tied up to the embankment and locals explain that they are used for shuttling people and contraband between Belize and Mexico. But the guy with the bike denies this.
AX: 01:50 These canoes. They use them for fishing. Fishing fishing.
Narr: Apparently that isn't all. A Douglas resident confirms that the canoes are in fact used for smuggling. The Rio Hondo is about 125 yards wide here, and deep. But at other parts of the Mexican border, the river is narrow and shallow. So shallow, that people can walk right across the river and into Mexico, and they do. While the official border crossing is heavily monitored on both the Belizean and Mexican side, these essentially open borders allow the Chinese to be smuggled across with little hassle.
After a few minutes of conversation with these guys, I drive away. After the Chinese cross into Mexico, they move up and across the border into the US. Immigration estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 Chinese nationals are illegally smuggled into the US every year. And every week, between 50 to 100 Chinese nationals are caught trying to cross the US-Mexican border.
AMB: Mosquitoes, night sounds.
An hour later, I return to the river's edge, hoping to check things out without the scrutiny. Already the stars are out and the mosquitoes are swarming in full force. Approaching the riverbank for the second time, I see one of the guys, the one with the shaggy hair, leaning on his bike. No one is around, nothing is happening. As I drive back toward the highway, in the rearview mirror I see him standing alone, among the sugarcane, waiting. Waiting for what, exactly, isn't clear. This is Irene Jay Liu, Columbia Radio News.