The List: The World’s Top Immigrant Smuggling Routes

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The Long Road from Guatemala to the United States

Trends: Mexicans are still by far the largest group of illegal immigrants to the United States: In 2005, 86 percent of apprehensions across the U.S.-Mexico border were of Mexicans. But as Mexicans head north to find a better life in the United States, Guatemalans are falling in behind thembetween 45,000 and 75,000 Guatemalan peasants cross the southern Mexican border each year, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Disturbingly, drug lords are seizing control of the human-smuggling business across the Americas, using migrants as human decoys for diverting border authorities from shipments of drugs.

Hot new route: The new fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in California and Texas merely shifted migration routes away from traditional entry ports near San Diego and El Paso. The hot new gateway is the area around Tucson, Arizona, which saw a 64 percent increase in the number of apprehensions in 2004 compared with the previous year.

Why they leave: Its the economy, stupid. Most migrants from Latin America are looking for a better-paying job in order to send remittances home to their families left behind. But violent crime could also play a role: Increasing numbers of asylum seekers from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala cite fear of gang violence on their applications.

What they find: In the United States, a crackdown: tough Border Patrol agents, the National Guard, and the Minutemen, anti-illegal immigrant activists who are taking enforcement into their own hands.

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Northeast Asian Exodus

Trends: In an indication of just how bad the situation in Hermit Kingdom has gotten, apprehensions of North Koreans skyrocketed in Thailand in 2006. Since the mid-1990s, at least 200,000 Chinese have moved to far southeastern Russia.

Hot new route: Desperate North Koreans are forced to get creative in fleeing to the more prosperous South. A common way to get there is via Thailand through China and Laos. Many never make it out of China.

Why they leave: The severe famine that hit North Korea after disastrous economic reforms prompted thousands to leave their homes. Along with Chinas surplus of males, this migration has fueled a new kind of sex trade: Chinese smugglers attract young women, many of them from North Korea, with the promise of a good job, and then sell them to local Chinese men as wives. At the same time, Chinese living in the three underdeveloped provinces nearest a depopulated region of southeastern Russia have responded to growing demand for labor across the border.

What they find: A rude welcome. Beijing stubbornly calls North Koreans refugees defectors and pledges to hand them back to Kim Jong Il. For its part, the Russian media has labeled Chinese immigration a yellow peril, a threat to Russian identity.

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Eastern Europe: Sex Merchant to the World

Trends: The fast-track inclusion of Eastern European countries into the European Union, where there is free mobility among member countries, has made the region a favorite transit zone for human traffickinga business worth $12 billion, according to the European Commission. Interpol reports that migrants are coming from all over: Some journey from Central Asia to Russia and from there to Western Europe through Ukraine, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Others travel through Iran, Turkey, and up through the Balkans.

Hot new route: An increasing number of women trafficked across Eastern Europe arrive in Constanta, Romanias Black Sea port city that recently became a through station for U.S. military airplanes on their way to Iraq.

Why they leave: To escape poverty and unemployment. For women in developing countries, poverty and unemployment levels are disproportionately high compared with mens levels. Thus, women in Eastern Europe and Central Asia make easy prey for traffickers promising them marriage or domestic work in wealthier parts of Europe.

What they find: For the lucky ones, work in the informal sector and eventually amnesty. Others, especially women, see their passports confiscated by employers upon arrival and become virtual slaves. With the help of local authorities or private charities, some eventually return home, often suffering from post-traumatic psychological symptoms.

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Welcome from the Jungle: Sub-Saharan Africa to Southern Europe

Trends: Italians used to say Moroccan as a crude shorthand for illegal immigrant. In recent years, though, more and more African boat-people have begun their dangerous journey from further south. At least 26,000 Africans landed in Spains Canary Islands in 2006, five times the number estimated in 2005. Not all sub-Saharan Africans make it as far as Europe, however: Between 2.2 and 4 million of themmostly Sudanesework in Egypt, 1 to 1.5 million in Libya, and around 100,000 in each of Mauritania and Algeria.

Hot new route: A long walk along ancient trade routes across the Sahara and onto the oases in southern Morocco. From there many try the hazardous hop to the Spanish Canary Islands in rickety, overcrowded motor boats that cost the lives of between 500 and 3,000 Africans during the first 10 months of 2006. According to the Guardian newspaper, though, during the same period, some 25,000 more made it alive.

Why they leave: Who would want to stay? Conflict and economic decline in West Africa, the Horn, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo make life unbearable in much of sub-Saharan Africa. On the demand side, European and North African economies are hungry for cheap workers and young taxpayers. Libya, in particular, tried to remarket itself as an African power by welcoming workers from sub-Saharan Africa during the countrys recent period of international isolation.

What they find: After erecting fences in Ceuta and Melilla (Spanish exclaves in Morocco) and installing an early-warning radar system in Gibraltar, Europeans are equipping North African governments with weapons and helicopters to do the dirty work. The result? A rising tide of xenophobia on both sides of the Mediterranean.

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In and Out of the Middle East

Trends: Over the past 20 years, an estimated 200,000 peoplemostly women and childrenwere trafficked from South Asia to the Middle East, mostly to oil-rich Gulf monarchies. However, levels of internal displacement in other parts of the Middle East run high, especially in Iraq: Over 1 million Iraqi refugees are currently based in Syria, 700,000 in Jordan, and 9,000 in Sweden. Remarkably, in 2006 the United States admitted only 202 Iraqi refugees.

Hot new route: From Iraq to Sweden, a three-day drive through Turkey, Italy, and central Europe curled up in the trunk of a car.

Why they leave: Those who migrate voluntarily are looking for a better job; the rest are kidnapped by traffickers. In 2005, the bulk of Iraqi refugees were fleeing sectarian violence and widespread chaos.

What they find: Exploitation in the Gulf Countries; unemployment in Syria; housing, shelter, and a start-up check in Sweden; bureaucratic delays in the United States.

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