Federal Mexican agents arrested four migrant smugglers in Guaymas, Sonora, accused of using U.S. airports to move Central Americans and Mexicans into the United States, a Sonoran newspaper reported Wednesday.

Agents also seized smuggler manifests showing 111 airports in 33 U.S. states that were used to smuggle the migrants.

The smuggler manifests named more than 500 pollos,  including their destination, their names, how much each paid and who would pick them up from the airports, El Imparcial newspaper reported.

A public safety director told the newspaper that the FBI was investigating the incident.

This is at least moderately scandalous, considering how efficiently the smugglers documented the movement of their human cargo.

Presumably, they were successful in moving some people into the United States before the agents arrested them.

The question is how?

When I enter the airport, I’m subject to an identification check, complete with stripping off my watch, shoes and wallet. On occasion, I also surrender cigarette lighters and, in one incident I won’t soon forget, a folding plastic screwdriver.

So how were smugglers able to move people through the vast number of screeners and federal agents manning the airports?

Using airports to smuggle migrants is nothing new of course. The U.S. Border Patrol periodically arrests migrants at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and I’ve seen them frequently at Tucson International Airport.

Spot checks are also made at the airport in Las Vegas as well.

Putting aside the terrorists-could-enter-the-country-through-Mexico argument for a moment, common sense would dictate that if I’m as heavily scrutinized as any other passenger, migrant smuggling through the airport wouldn’t work, right?

The arrest is small but raises significant questions about the Transportation Security Administration’s ability to control whom boards U.S. aircraft.

Last month, the TSA abandoned a $150 million flight program whose basic idea was to check passengers’ names and biographical data against terrorism watch lists.

But the program, $150 million and four year’s worth of work, was suspended after the Government Accountability Office found fatal flaws in how the system was being managed, MSNBC news reported in February.

– Michel Marizco