RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas — Federal agents arrested a group of 102 illegal aliens that had used rafts to cross into Texas.
The large-scale arrest took place on Tuesday morning near the border community of Fronton when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted a group of about 80 illegal aliens crossing the Rio Grande using rafts, information provided to Breitbart Texas by Border Patrol officials revealed.
Moments after the first group crossed, agents spotted a second large group crossing the river in rafts. The illegal aliens were meeting up in a wooded area with the first group. Border Patrol agents responded in large numbers to the area and were aided by helicopters from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Texas Department of Public Safety in order to stop the smuggling effort.
In all authorities were able to arrest 102 illegal aliens. The group was made up of 73 men, 12 women and 17 underage teenagers. The illegal aliens were taken to a Border Patrol station for processing.
As Breitbart Texas has reported in the past, the area where the smuggling attempt took place has a long history of being used as a human and drug trafficking corridor. Smugglers with the Gulf Cartel use the area because of the lack of a physical fence. The river serves as the only barrier. Once their cargo is over the river, smugglers then drive the illegal aliens or the drug loads to stash houses in a variety of border cities and communities before moving them further north. In those stash houses, illegal aliens are often subjected to abuse and extortion at the hands of ruthless criminal organization.
“Human smugglers are callous and dangerous,” USBP Acting Chief Raul Ortiz said to Breitbart Texas during a recent interview discussing the ruthlessness of human smugglers. “They prey upon the desperation of illegal immigrants and exploit them for profit.”
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.