65 Migrants Found Packed in Two Texas Stash Houses near Border

El Paso Sector Border Patrol agents teamed up with other federal agents to interdict two human smuggling stash houses in Texas and New Mexico. The interdictions led to the arrest of 65 migrants.

El Paso Border Patrol agents teamed up with ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents to raid a suspected stash house in central El Paso on June 30, according to information obtained from Border Patrol officials. The agents found 22 migrants being warehoused in the house.

Agents conducted immigration interviews and determined the migrants came from Ecuador (10), Guatemala (4), Mexico (3), Nicaragua (2), Honduras (2), and El Salvador (1).

Agents working in nearby Sunland Park, New Mexico, found another stash hour near the border with Mexico on the same day. The agents found 43 migrants locked in the house. An immigration interview identified the migrants as coming to the U.S. from Ecuador (25), Mexico (6), Guatemala (6), El Salvador (4), and Brazil (2).

Officials said all 65 of the migrants were single adults who illegally entered the U.S. and were attempting to make their way undetected into the interior of the country. Smugglers frequently warehouse migrants in crowded conditions in these types of stash house operations, officials reported.

The agents processed the migrants and expelled them to Mexico under Title 42 coronavirus protection protocols put in place during the Trump administration by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The El Paso Sector has seen a significant increase in the number of single adults crossing the border illegally in Fiscal Year 2021,” Border Patrol officials reported. “In comparison to the Family Unit Crisis of Fiscal Year 2019, there has been an increase of 261 percent for single adult encounters in Fiscal Year 2021 year to date. As of the end of May 2021, the El Paso Sector has encountered 86,536 single adults.”

“Our El Paso Sector integrated targeting teams continue to disrupt human smuggling by transnational criminal organizations in our region,” El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez said in a written statement. “We will continue to work together with other agencies to rescue these migrants from these deplorable living conditions where they are held for long periods of time.”