Coyote (person)

Colloquially, a coyote is a person who smuggles immigrants across the Mexico–United States border.^[1] The word "coyote" is a loanword from Mexican Spanish that usually refers to a species of North American wild dog (Canis latrans).^[2]

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.^[3]