U.S to target migrant smugglers as Biden struggles with border crossings

FILE PHOTO: A human smuggler, or coyote, rides a motorcycle on the beach after Honduran migrant families trying to reach the U.S. crossed the Usumacinta river on a boat, at Corozal border crossing in Lacandon jungle, Mexico March 7, 2021. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido/File Photo

The United States is launching an operation to identify and target human smugglers, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday, as the Biden administration struggles with record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that Operation Sentinel would seek to block smugglers' ability to engage in "travel, trade, and finance" in the United States.

FILE PHOTO: A mother and her children migrants accompanied a human smuggler or "coyote" (R) cross the Rio Bravo river to El Paso, Texas, U.S., as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 30, 2021. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido/File Photo

The operation will aim to identify smugglers and target their activities by revoking travel documents, suspending trade entities, and freezing financial assets, DHS said.

DHS said smugglers "pose significant dangers to migrants," noting that border patrol agents had found the bodies of 250 migrants who died en route to the United States in fiscal year 2020.

Migrants from Central America and elsewhere often use smugglers to travel to the border and are prone to extortion, kidnapping and other violence.

Roughly 168,000 people were picked up by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, the highest monthly tally since March 2001.

(Reporting by Mimi Dwyer in Los Angeles, editing by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O'Brien)