Colloquially, a coyote is a person who smuggles immigrants across the Mexico–United States border. The word "coyote" is a loanword from Mexican Spanish that usually refers to a species of North American wild dog (Canis latrans).
Migrants pay coyotes a fee to guide them across the border. Fees are normally collected once the migrant arrives at a predetermined destination, usually a border city in California, Texas, or Arizona. Since the 1990s, the proportion of migrants who hire coyotes has increased drastically as a result of intensified surveillance along the border.
Background
Early system: 1882–1917
Since the end of the nineteenth century, coyotes have been a part of the illegal migratory process for many Mexican migrants. From 1882 to 1917, a series of U.S legislations contributed to the rise of the coyote in illegal border crossings. The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and Immigration Act of 1885 caused the flow of labour to decline. This led to severe labour shortages in the south-western and western regions of the country.
The demand for Mexican workers from U.S employers rose and by 1884, supply was guaranteed when the railway connection of El Paso, Texas, with Mexico was completed. The illegal migratory crossings were largely unregulated and accepted as de facto acceptable practices.
"Enganchadores", Spanish for "hookers" (from the verb "to hook"), were Mexican individuals hired by U.S employers as labour recruiters. Enganchadores would persuade Mexican peasants to travel on the railway in acceptance of American jobs. The enganche system was not a novelty in Mexico. It had been established to recruit southern peasants for work in northern industries within the country. Companies in the United States effectively used the system to satisfy their labour needs. It can be argued that enganchadores are an ancestor of the modern-day coyote. Like today's coyotes, they acted as middlemen between migrants and the United States.
Explicit restrictions on Mexican immigration during the late 1910s and early 1920s caused U.S labour-seeking migrants to increasingly rely on middlemen for labour-brokerage with American companies.
Labour-brokerage coyote: 1917–42
The U.S Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924 required foreign individuals crossing the border to take literacy tests, undergo medical exams, and pay head taxes and visa fees. The new requirements "combined with the creation of the Border Patrol in 1924, prompted thousands of Mexican migrants to cross the Rio Bravo surreptitiously to enter the country." As a direct result, demand for coyotes grew exponentially. The U.S Commissioner of Immigration observed the trend commenting, in a Congressional report, that a "new and thriving industry... having for its object the illegal introduction into the United States of Mexican aliens on a wholesale scale by means of organized efforts" had emerged.
Ciudad Juarez became a hub for coyotes during the mid-1920s. In his study on Mexican migration, anthropologist Manuel Gamio details the process. Coyote fees were considerably less than those needed for visitor's visas; an approximate $100 to $150 difference (based on today's exchange rate). Working individually, or with others, a coyote would lead his client across the Rio Bravo via automobile, boat, or by swimming. Crossings were widely successful as Gamio notes: “These people know their ground thoroughly... and sometimes even have an arrangement with some district official.” The prevalent use of false documents, or "leased" legitimate documents, contributed to the success.
Increased restrictions on migrants, including ones from Mexico into the U.S. were primarily starting to be put into place in the 1920s, although there was not a national quota restricting Western Hemisphere immigrants until 1965. Increasing restrictions caused the demand for cheap migrant labour to exceed the legal ability for foreign workers to enter and work in the country. The conflict between the Nativist demand for restrictions and the many business owners who wanted less expensive labour, lead to a demand for unauthorized persons to be brought into the country. This led to an economic draw for desperate people to illegally enter as well as reasons for employers in the U.S. to use and support illegal methods to get more migrants into the country illegally to have more workers than the quota allows for. Therefore, both groups required the help of guides to get migrants into America, requiring the help of the coyotes and similar groups.