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Key Findings

1. Human smugglers operating along routes from Central America to the United States range from independent operators, to ad hoc groups, to loose or more-formal networks, such as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), but many do not appear to be TCOs.
2. Little evidence exists that drug-trafficking TCOs engage directly in human smuggling, but they do control primary smuggling corridors into the United States and charge migrants a "tax," or piso, to pass through their territories.
3. The authors' preliminary estimate of revenues to all types of smugglers, not just TCOs, from smuggling migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, combined, ranged from about $200 million to about $2.3 billion in 2017.
4. The authors' preliminary estimate of taxes paid to drug-trafficking TCOs by migrants from the same three countries ranged from $30 million to $180 million in 2017.