The Birth Of A New Cartel: Meet The Mexican Institute Of Immigration

The top immigration authority in Mexico is now operating as its own criminal entity extorting, kidnapping and smuggling migrants all across the country.

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico.— The night of last Friday May 3rd two men were shot dead in two different vehicles right outside the Ciudad Juárez’ International Airport. One of the victims died inside a small sedan, while the second one was on the driver’s side of a large SUV. Both of them had been waiting for several minutes in front of the airport. Authorities recovered over a dozen .233 bullet caskets, an uncommon caliber for sicarios in Ciudad Juárez, and mostly used by the Mexican National Guard. 

This scene has repeated at least four other times during the first half of 2024. Ciudad Juárez’ International Airport has become the main turf fought over by the Sinaloa and the Juarez cartel for being where thousands of migrants arrive every day in hopes of making it across the border into Texas.

But above both criminal organizations is a new cartel: the Mexican Institute of Immigration (INM for its Spanish acronym). The top immigration authority in Mexico is now operating as its own criminal entity extorting, kidnapping and smuggling migrants all across the country. 

Although the two main cartels in Juárez are still fighting each other to get full control of the juicy business of human smuggling, the INM is making bigger bucks by selling immigration permits to foreigners to be able to freely travel through Mexico, an advantage Mexican officials have over criminal organizations. 

Each permit, according to sources who have acquired one, is being sold for up to 50,000 Mexican pesos, roughly $2,000. Without one of these, migrants are stuck at the Mexican southern border for months and end up having to pay sometimes more as a bribe to the same INM officials to let them out of Mexican southern border towns like Tapachula. 

I recently traveled to Mexico City and on my way back, landing in Ciudad Juárez I witnessed how the INM has set up a checkpoint right before baggage claim, requesting all of the travelers for an official ID, but targeting only those brown travelers with a non-Mexican accent. The couple of agents in charge set them apart from the rest of the people and when everybody is gone, they scare them by threatening to send them back to their countries on the next flight. This is where they are also making big bucks. 

A migrant I recently interviewed in Ciudad Juárez also said that it is the same INM officials who offer to get them in touch with a human smuggler right outside the airport, for a few extra thousands of pesos. The INM officials are making a circular business by asking migrants for cash in exchange for a “plug” and asking cartels a fee to hand over business to them. 

I also traveled to Anapra, the last neighborhood west of Juarez before the empty desert expands into nowhere. This neighborhood is right across Sunland Park, New Mexico and has been known for human smuggling activities since at least 50 years ago. This is where I met with ‘Spider’, one of the top lieutenants for La Linea, a splinter off of the Juárez Cartel. He told me they (La Línea) know that the INM and the Mexican National Guard are working together as a “new cartel”.

“They use their uniforms and badges to steal pollos (migrants) from us. They always say it was a rescue operation, but that is not true, they steal from us when another organization (cartel) paid more for them than us,” Spider said.   

He also said that it is the same INM who hands over migrants to them after being deported from the U.S.

“We meet at the parking lot of the Smart in Anapra and they start offering the pollos to whoever has the money to pay. The price is 2,000 pesos (roughly $100) per pollo, and we get them and charge them up to $4000 just to smuggle them back again,” Spider said. 

According to Mexican official figures, Ciudad Juárez received almost 45,000 migrants during the first three months of 2024.