Smugglers who work to promote irregular migration from Mexico to the United States have profited from renting Brazilian children. For $3,000, they deliver a minor to customers to ensure they cross the border.
With the so-called “fall falls” scheme in the US, Brazilians began to adopt the strategy. A migrant stepping on American soil accompanied by a first-degree minor relative, when surrendering to the American authorities, responds to the process in freedom.
The measure takes place because a child cannot remain alone during procedures for repatriation to Brazil or acceptance by the US government. Smugglers and coyotes saw the rule as a business opportunity.
In eastern Minas Gerais, where Governador Valadares is located —which historically concentrates the largest number of migrants to the US—, the scheme has grown.
According to the Federal Police, the rental of children gained strength in 2019, months after former President Donald Trump determined the end of the separation of migrant families.
As a result, there are guardians for minors who receive money and there are those who give up a child in exchange for a parent’s free crossing.
A couple with two children, for example, only need one to enter the country. So the parents take one child and leave the other for rent.
“There are people who lend the child, rent it to the relative to go. There are many miserable people who donate their child. There are children who have been used four, five times”, says Daniel Ottoni, PF delegate in Governador Valadares.
Previously, guardians of children took commercial flights to cities on the Mexican-US border and turned themselves in to US authorities seeking asylum. After a while, agents began to demand that migrants wait for the decision on Mexican soil.
Because of this, minors also needed to cross the border, in an extremely dangerous crossing. There was pressure from public opinion.
“once inside [dos EUA] accompanied by a minor, [eles] they cannot be arrested and they cannot be returned to Mexico either,” says PF delegate Cristiano Campidelli.
US authorities put bracelets on migrants and ask them to await the process at non-governmental organizations or churches. However, smugglers advise to cut them down.
In this context, two modalities of crossing were created: the “cai cai real”, in which the child goes with the parents; and “cai falls mounted”, when there is a forgery of a document to forge proof of kinship.
According to Campidelli, there are dramatic reports. “A case like that happened, and the other man left [o menor], it took a while to discover the child’s true parents,” he said.
According to the PF, the forgery process takes place before the passport is issued. Smugglers manage to issue documents that are true, but which are ideologically false.
An example of this is assuming the paternity of the minor. A migrant who wants to go to the US goes with the child’s mother to the registry office and declares himself the father.
According to Arpen-Brasil (National Association of Registrars of Natural Persons), voluntary recognition of paternity can be done at any civil registry office, regardless of where the child’s birth was registered.
The PF discovered, in one of its operations —Ca Cai II— that a mother of three children without a father’s registration on the birth certificate went with two men to the civil registry office so that they could recognize the paternity of two of her parents. children with the aim of migrating.
According to police, she was recruited by a man who lives in the United States and who offered her US$3,000 per child, in addition to payment of expenses for the crossing. In this case, the PF managed to intervene before they left Brazil.
Another strategy of the scheme also takes place in a notary’s office when a swindler impersonates one of the child’s parents to obtain authentication in the document that frees one of the parents to travel alone with an underage child.
A resident of Itanhomi, a town in Minas Gerais near Governador Valadares, bricklayer Valdir Gomes Lomeu, 50, for example, said he does not remember signing authorization for his ex-wife to travel to the US with her 9-year-old son.
Separated for two years, he discovered that his son is abroad when he went to try to visit him. At the gate of the ex’s house, he was approached by a neighbor who asked if the boy had traveled.
When questioning his former father-in-law, he received a positive response. “After the service I went there to see my son, this in June of this year. I asked her father: ‘Where’s Samuel?’ [nos EUA].”
Lomeu was surprised. According to him, the agreement was that he would go along with this migration, also through the “cai cai” scheme. The bricklayer has already lived illegally in the US for five years, from 2003 to 2008.
Now he talks to his son over a video call and knows the boy is fine. However, Lomeu has no idea when he will see him again. “They’re living at her sister’s house. She’s fine and studying, that’s what matters,” he said.
According to the PF, in Governador Valadares and region, those who provide irregular migration services have been looking for registries in smaller cities to falsify documents. That’s because, if they are discovered, there is the possibility of fleeing because of the low number of Military Police.
And the case of Lomeu is not isolated, according to accusations that the leaf had access. A man, whose identity is kept confidential, discovered that his ex-wife crossed the border from Mexico into the US this year with their two children, aged 8 and 12.
He only found out about the case because he called his ex several times, who didn’t answer. As it was close to the day to stay with the children, the father went to his ex-wife’s house and was told, also by a neighbor, that she had gone away.
There was a surprise because the father had never authorized the children to have their passports issued or to travel. The procedure took place at the registry office in Alpercata.
Another case of forgery occurred in the city of Periquito, in the same region. A man went to the civil registry and notes to notarize an international travel authorization form.
In this case, the registry identified the fraud and called the PM. The man was arrested.
This irregular migratory movement articulated by criminals has caused, in addition to emotional suffering, social impacts in eastern Minas Gerais and also in the USA. One of the effects is the emptying of schools in Brazil and the high demand in American cities.
A leaf he visited schools around Governador Valadares. Officials said the departure of children has significantly reduced the number of students.
The mayor of Tarumirim, MarcÃlio Bonfim, said that around 500 students dropped out of school in 2021. “I hold meetings with members of state and municipal schools. The story they bring to me is frightening. I had to close three schools because there were no students. In one of them had only nine students left,” he said.
Bonfim said that school abandonment also makes the municipality stop receiving money from Fundeb (funded for financing basic education) and from hiring teachers.
A similar problem faces Rafael França, mayor of Alpercata. He cannot say how many students he has lost, but he said he has noticed children leaving schools.
“Some parents don’t even request the transfer and even abandon it, then we find out that they are in the United States,” he said.
If empty in Minas, public schools are more crowded in Massachusetts.
In telegrams to which the leaf had access through the LAI (Access to Information Law), the consul general of Brazil in Boston, Benedicto Fonseca Filho, reported that, despite the growth in the number of migrants in Worcester, local authorities have welcomed them positively.
“The management of public schools in Worcester, for example, has taken the decision to authorize the enrollment of children and adolescents, even in the absence of complete documentation”, he said.
Liliane Costa, executive director of Brace (Brazilian American Center), which welcomes migrants, said that 1,000 new Brazilian students entered schools in Framingham this year.
“The profile of the migrant this year is different and there are many children arriving. They need to go to school, because if it is discovered that the minor is not in school, the parents have many problems.”
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