60 Migrants Arrested During Smuggling Efforts in Texas near Border

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents arrested 60 migrants in multiple human smuggling interdictions during a two-day period. The agents disrupted stash house operations and intercepted transportation efforts.

Rio Grande City Station agents received a call for assistance from the Starr County Sheriff’s Office in South Texas on the evening of September 19. Agents responded to the deputy’s location and learned about a possible stash house operation, according to information obtained from Rio Grande Valle Sector Border Patrol officials.

The agents and deputies made entry into the suspected human smuggling stash house. As they entered the residence, multiple migrants jumped out of the house and fled on foot. Agents searched the area and found a total of 25 illegal immigrants, officials stated. Immigration interviews identified the migrants as citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.

The following morning, Roma Police Department officials received information about a possible human smuggling attempt in their South Texas border town. As officers approached the area, they stopped the reported vehicle. Officials said all of the occupants jumped out of the vehicle and fled on foot to avoid apprehension.

Police officers called for Border Patrol assistance. The agents and officers rounded up a total of 13 migrants, the report continues.

As the investigation continued, agents and Roma PD officers approached a suspected human smuggling stash house on the same street as the traffic stop. A search of the home led to the arrest of 20 more foreign nationals including four unaccompanied minors.

Elsewhere in the sector, Kingsville Station agents assigned to the Javier Vega, Jr. Immigration Checkpoint on U.S. Highway 77 observed a Honda pickup truck approaching for inspection. During the initial interview, a Border Patrol K-9 alerted to an odor it is trained to detect, officials stated. The agents referred the driver to a secondary inspection station.

The agents searched the truck and found two migrants locked inside a hidden compartment in the bed of the pickup. Officials noted the temperature inside the compartment exceeded 123 degrees. The smugglers locked the migrants inside the hot compartment without the ability to escape in the event of an accident or abandonment by their human smuggler.

Officials said all 60 of the apprehended migrants were processed under the current sector guidelines.

“Even with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, human smugglers continue to try these brazen attempts with zero regard for the lives they endanger nor to the health of the citizens of our great nation,” Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials said in a written statement. “The U.S. Border Patrol agents of the Rio Grande Valley Sector will continue to safeguard the nation and community against these criminal elements.”