Border sector data, NGO expenditure records, and intelligence assessments reveal a disturbing convergence: Mexican cartels have effectively co-opted the logistics infrastructure of humanitarian aid organizations — much of it taxpayer-funded — to finalize human smuggling routes into the United States.
The Logistics Overlap
In the Darién Gap — the roadless jungle connecting Colombia to Panama that has become the primary transit route for migrants heading north — a grim reality has taken hold. According to InSight Crime’s 2024 analysis, it is functionally impossible to cross Colombia overland or through the Darién Gap without paying organized crime groups for passage. The Gaitanista Gulf Clan, Colombia’s most powerful criminal organization, operates clandestine boat docks and migrant camps in Acandí, the last Colombian town before the jungle crossing.
Approximately 500 Venezuelans per day cross Colombia’s southern border into Ecuador, feeding a northward migration pipeline that generates enormous revenue for criminal networks at every stage. Migrant smuggling — once a sideline for drug trafficking organizations — has become a major revenue stream in its own right, with WOLA documenting how government absence in border regions has left criminal organizations as the de facto authorities controlling migrant movement.
The NGO Layer
At the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the transit corridor, a network of humanitarian organizations provides services to migrants: shelter, food, medical care, legal assistance, and transportation. Much of this work is funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars through federal grants and contracts. The organizations operate with humanitarian intent, and their services address real human suffering.
But the Center for Immigration Studies has documented how cartel networks have learned to incorporate these NGO services into their smuggling logistics. The pattern works like this: cartels charge migrants thousands of dollars for passage to the U.S. border. Once there, the cartel’s role ends — and the NGO infrastructure takes over, providing the shelter, legal assistance, and transportation that completes the journey into the American interior.
The cartels don’t need to operate the last mile themselves. Taxpayer-funded organizations do it for them.
The Panama Pivot
On July 1, 2024, newly inaugurated Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino launched a plan to close the Darién Gap crossing, backed by the Biden White House. The initiative aimed to disrupt the physical corridor that funneled hundreds of thousands of migrants through the jungle annually. But closing one route simply redirected traffic to others — sea routes, alternative border crossings, and smuggling networks that adapted faster than government enforcement could follow.
The IRS 990 Question
NGOs that receive federal funding for migrant services are required to file IRS Form 990s disclosing their expenditures. Analysis of these filings reveals significant spending on transportation — moving migrants from border areas to interior cities where they await immigration proceedings. While this transportation serves a legitimate function within the immigration system, it also represents the final link in a chain that begins with cartel-controlled smuggling.
The CBP’s border encounter statistics show the scale of the challenge: millions of encounters over the past three years, each representing a person who transited a cartel-controlled corridor before reaching U.S. territory. The question is not whether cartels benefit from the NGO infrastructure — they manifestly do. The question is whether the United States can provide humanitarian services to migrants without simultaneously subsidizing the smuggling networks that profit from their journey.
The Policy Paradox
This is not a simple problem with a simple solution. Cutting NGO funding doesn’t stop migration — it just removes the humanitarian safety net that prevents worse outcomes. But continuing to fund an infrastructure that cartels have learned to exploit creates a perverse subsidy: American taxpayers effectively cover the last-mile costs of a criminal enterprise.
Until the United States addresses the upstream demand — either by creating legal pathways that undercut smuggling economics or by enforcing consequences that deter unauthorized entry — the cartel-NGO convergence will continue. The smugglers will keep charging for the jungle. The NGOs will keep providing the bus tickets. And the taxpayers will keep funding both ends of the pipeline.
Eduardo Bacci is an investigative journalist at The Investigative Journal. Data sources include ICE enforcement data, InSight Crime investigations, WOLA analysis, and CBP encounter statistics.