CARTELSCartels Turn to Social Media to Lure Americans into Human Smuggling as Texas Enforces Stricter Laws

By Alejandro Serrano

Published 31 December 2024

Thousands of people have been arrested under Texas’ human smuggling law. Now they face at least a decade in prison under sentencing guidelines that took effect this year.

Editor’s note: This story contains explicit language.

When Justin Persinger met the woman at a grocery store, he was broke and sleeping on a friend’s couch in San Antonio. After some flirting, she asked if he would be interested in making a little extra money by giving some people a ride down by the border in Eagle Pass, Persinger’s lawyers said.

The woman told Persinger he’d earn about $1,000, and he agreed, hoping it would help his chances of scoring a date with her. And the cash wouldn’t hurt.

But when Persinger made the 2 ½-hour drive to the border, a state trooper was hiding out nearby. He was arrested.

Persinger is among thousands of people who have been charged with human smuggling since Texas began an all-out effort called Operation Lone Star to control its border with Mexico nearly four years ago. While elected officials say they are targeting the Mexican cartels who run smuggling and drug trafficking empires, most of those charged in Texas are American citizens — and smuggling arrests ballooned by about 1,150% after the state began its border crackdown.

The people they’re arresting are often lured into becoming human smugglers by vague posts seeking drivers for thousands of dollars on social media apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to eight defense attorneys, three prosecutors and four people arrested for smuggling.

People who answer such an ad get instructions from an anonymous person — who does not tell the prospective driver they’ll be committing a crime — through the messaging app WhatsApp, the lawyers and convicted smugglers said.

They’re told to drive to specific spots on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border, pick up a group of strangers and drive them to a drop off point in large Texas cities like Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. They’re instructed to send the unknown person messages along the way to confirm key milestones in the journey — like arriving at the initial destination and when the migrants get into the vehicle.

“We have Uber, we have Lyft, we have a lot of these different services where normal everyday citizens are drivers,” said Mary Pietrazek, a San Antonio defense attorney who’s represented nearly 500 people arrested under the state’s human smuggling law. “It’s not outside the realm of possibility for somebody to want a driver.”