Along the banks of the Rio Grande in the scrubby grassland near Penitas, south-east Texas, hundreds of colored plastic wristbands ripped off by migrants litter the ground, signs of what US border officials say is a growing trend among powerful drug cartels and smugglers to track people paying to cross unlawfully into the United States.
The plastic bands – red, blue, green, white – some labeled “arrivals” or “entries” in Spanish, are discarded after migrants cross the river on makeshift rafts, according to a Reuters witness. Their use has not been widely reported before.
Betcha Joe gets 10%.
