Immigration into the United States is being partly driven by gun violence — which itself is fueled by firearms bought in the U.S. and illegally transported back to Mexico by organized crime networks.
Over 200,000 firearms found in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico between 2015 and 2022 were linked back to the U.S., recent data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) shows.
Migrants from those four countries make up the bulk of border crossings into the U.S. each year.
“So the criminal organizations that are running drugs into the United States are also controlling the movement of migrants and making it impossible for many families to stay in their communities. [They] are getting their guns from U.S. retail markets,” John Lindsay-Poland from the organization Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico told Newsweek.
The map below uses federal data released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that shows the states and counties where those firearms were traced back to.
Texas topped the list, with 22,506 firearms linked back from those four countries, followed by other border states Arizona (9,451) and California (7,796).
Guns linked to all 50 U.S. states were found in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with some traveling far as Maine and Hawaii.
The map below shows the U.S. counties with the highest numbers of firearms linked back to them. Maricopa County in Arizona had the most, at 4,983, while 3,787 came from Harris County, Texas.
The nexus between immigration and gun violence
While some weapons were trafficked through complex criminal networks, many others were simply bought in the U.S., usually by straw purchasers, and carried back across the border.
Mexico maintains strict laws about who can buy firearms, and all guns are required to be registered with the federal government. It’s a part of the immigration debate that too often goes unexplored, said Lindsay-Poland.
“For Republicans, any conversation about guns having a negative impact is a red line and they cannot go there. So even the most modest proposals for transparency or for controlling the legal trade or preventing the most militarized weapons from getting to cartels, are just off limits to Republicans,” he said.
“Among the Democrats, I would say there is an increasing awareness of the links between guns and forced migration, but most Democrats are still talking about those issues separately, as if they didn’t intersect.”
Cartels trafficking drugs like fentanyl into the U.S. has become a major focus for Republicans, but experts say that the gun trade going in the opposite direction also needs to be addressed, and the two are intrinsically linked.
Jean Guerrero, from the UCLA Latina Futures 2050 Lab, wrote in a recent essay that Kamala Harris should frame immigration as a gun-control issue as part of her 2024 pitch to voters. She referenced Harris’ first campaign ad, focused on the border, which highlighted her time as a prosecutor going after cartels.
US officials say they are targeting the trade
Earlier this year, the Mexican government announced it was suing U.S. gun manufacturers over the number of firearms making their way into a country with only one legal gun store.
While U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have seized 3,634 weapons and munitions heading into the U.S. from October 2023 to June, data for seizures going the other way is difficult to come by.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson pointed to statements made in September 2023 that ATF had seized more firearms set to leave the U.S. in the previous 12 months compared to the year before.
“Investigations to break down criminal networks have benefitted tremendously from increased interagency collaboration, both within DHS and with our federal partners,” the agency said at the time.
“Keeping weapons and ammunition out of the hands of criminals is vital to keeping communities safe on both sides of the border. Our investigations bring criminals to justice here in the United States and provide law enforcement partners in Mexico support as they work to dismantle dangerous cartel networks.”
But the weapons don’t just end up in Mexico. Guatemala received a large number of weapons, including pistols, that originated the U.S. following changes to export laws under the Trump administration.
Newsweek reached out to ATF for further comment on the issue but has yet to receive a response.
Could assault weapon ban help?
While Lindsay-Poland said there was no one quick fix for such a complex issue as international gun trafficking, an assault weapons ban — a policy often touted by Democrats, including Harris — could help stem the flow of firearms out of the country.
“It won’t be immediate because there’s already a lot of assault weapons from the U.S. in Mexico, but it is the most common tool used by criminal organizations that are making life in Mexico just impossible to stay,” he said.
The move has been backed by the deep-pocketed gun-control nonprofit Everytown, which highlighted that the Department of Justice had charged over 1,300 defendants with firearms dealing in the past five years.
Focusing just on the southwest border was not going to fix the issue, despite both parties focusing on that as a key talking point of the election, Lindsay-Poland told Newsweek.
“They’re using what is a structural problem in order to say that it’s partisan and it’s not like the Republicans have stemmed the reasons why people migrate either?” Lindsay-Poland said.
“So I think it’s an effective strategy for Harris to say, look, you are feeding the reasons why people are migrating and if you’re not willing to look at that then you are, you’re a big part of the problem.”
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