>>Beds are full and space is tight in Reynosa-based smuggling houses, as an increasing number of immigrants cannot afford to a pay a smuggler across the Rio Grande. <<
If they are turning themselves in why pay someone to sneak you across? Just swim across and let everyone see you doing it so you will be caught and fed and housed and bussed onto your destination?
I suspect that many of them are prisoners, locked in by the smugglers, and won't be released unless payment is made.