A Department of Homeland Security office that tracks criminal activity across borders believes smuggling organizations in Central America and Mexico are pivoting back to moving single adults over the southern border instead of children and families.

"This whole ecosystem of smuggling activity is shifting back into the traditional methods," said Derek Benner, acting director of Homeland Security Investigations within DHS, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "I've just been noticing from our operational tempo and reporting every morning that we're starting to see more of this activity."

For decades, Border Patrol had largely arrested single adult men from Mexico. But in 2014, tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America arrived at the southern border, double the previous year's number of children. Over the next few years, the population that surrendered at the border to federal agents or were caught sneaking over contained an abnormally high number of families. The smugglers had switched from single adults to bringing in adults with kids.

But by 2018, people wanting to leave widespread poverty and crime in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for the United States began organizing locally in small groups that grew to be hundreds and, in one case, 10,000 people. They used this "caravan" method to move safely together to the U.S. border and avoid having to pay smugglers up to $10,000 each to get to the U.S.

"That really obviated the need for any of the traditional services that a smuggling organization would provide: stash houses along the way; transportation; paying the plaza bosses to cross their territory; paying an organization to put you in a compartment in a truck or a car to get across the border; a stash house on the U.S. side; a transportation network on the U.S. side," said Benner. So as people organized caravans, smugglers came up with new services they could offer people.

Smugglers responded to the caravans of families with offers to single adults who did not have children or were traveling with children they were not related to.

"They might advise people like, 'Hey, if you need to, if you want to go to the border and get released, you need to create a family of unrelated people, and we'll sell you the documents, and we'll advise you on what to do,'" said Benner. Organizations sold fake and stolen identification documents that would portray them as related family members. Families can only be held by U.S. officials 20 days before they legally must be released.

By 2019, half of the 851,508 people apprehended for illegally crossing the southern border arrived with a family member, a record high. DHS responded with several initiatives, such as requiring people seeking asylum at border crossings to wait in Mexico for their day in court and curtailing the "catch and release" policy that had allowed hundreds of thousands of families who illegally crossed the border last year to be released into the country.

"The hardening of the border has an effect on the ability of smuggling cartels to exploit it and to sell their services. So you know, in this case, technology, the wall, more Border Patrol agents, more CBP [Customs and Border Protection port of entry] officers, more law enforcement at the border changes tactics," said Benner. "That's no longer a viable sales method anymore, so it becomes, 'What do we pivot to?'"

The answer was moving back to single adults. Benner described several incidents on both sides of the southern border last week in which carloads of individuals were detected by law enforcement and fled.

Smugglers have long-used stash houses, or homes where dozens to 100 people are held until being moved to their final destination, as well as tractor trailers, which can hold and transport people after they have made it across the border without being detected.

Now, DHS is focused on going after the means by which smugglers, mere employees of these mega-organizations, will use to send profits back south of the border.

"It's an illicit, illegal business enterprise whose sole purpose across the board is to generate illicit proceeds and make money," said Benner. "When we look at identifying the networks, it's not just to pursue criminal charges against the people involved. Equal importance is dedicated to, 'How do we dismantle that illicit proceeds network?'"

Benner said because a countless number of people are involved in the trafficking and smuggling of people and goods, it is impossible to estimate the value of the industry beyond "billions," and as long as money can be made, the industry will evolve as it is again.