MCALLEN, Texas — Federal agents arrested a woman accused of trying to pick up a group of immigrants; she had been arrested previously seven different times on smuggling cases but had never been prosecuted.
According to court records obtained by Breitbart Texas, earlier this week U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted 37-year-old Roxanne Lopez, a U.S. citizen, driving a maroon Mercury Grand Marquis from a levee in the Mission area known as La Lomita towards the Rio Grande in a manner consistent with human smuggling practices.
An agent drove his unit nearby Lopez’s vehicle where he saw three men come out of the brush area and run toward the vehicle; the agent drove toward the vehicle in order to intercept them. Lopez locked the doors of her vehicle not letting the three men into the vehicle. The three men ran toward some public restroom but the agent was able to apprehend the three men, Lopez and another person inside her vehicle who claimed to be a U.S. citizen.
Agents took all of the individuals to a border patrol station for further investigation and processing where they learned that Lopez had been arrested by agents on seven different occasions beginning on May 14, 2001 when she had been arrested at the Sarita checkpoint trying to smuggle two illegal immigrants. One of Lopez’s arrests was not for human smuggling but for marijuana smuggling when on October 18, 2004 agents at the Falfurrias checkpoint found 16 pounds of marijuana inside the bumper of a vehicle she was driving. Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas show that authorities handled each of her seven prior arrests as administrative cases meaning she was not criminally charged.
U.S. District Judge Dorina Ramos formally charged Lopez on the most recent case with human smuggling and ordered she be held without bond pending a detention hearing.
Seven Time Arrested Human Smuggler Caught