Enrique's Journey

A coyote is a person who smuggles undocumented immigrants across the US-Mexico border for a fee. Coyotes generally collect payment after their customers arrive in the US. Lourdes, Enrique, and María Isabel enter the US illegally with the help of coyotes. Enrique’s coyote, El Tiríndaro, runs an encampment for migrants outside Nuevo Laredo, on the edge of the Rio Grande. He takes Enrique under his wing, but his motives are not entirely selfless. El Tiríndaro feels for Enrique, who is the youngest person at the encampment. Thus, he shows Enrique how to sell discarded clothing and gives him a meal card another migrant left behind. His ultimate goal, however, is to help Enrique contact his mother in order to gain a new customer. Like other coyotes, El Tiríndaro is part of a network of smugglers. His job is to get migrants across the river and hand them over to other smugglers, after which he returns to Mexico. The human smuggling trade is lucrative, and Mexican gangs fight over control of it. El Tiríndaro was tortured and killed execution style, probably by a rival gang.