Honduran Asylum-Recipient Sentenced for Smuggling Migrants — For Third Time

A Honduran migrant will spend six and a half years in prison for his third conviction on human smuggling charges. The Honduran man had been smuggling migrants for more than nine years — some of that time while he was under asylum protection.

This week, 41-year-old Marlon Enrique “Gordo” Gallegos Rapalo appeared before Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane in McAllen, Texas. The judge sentenced him to six and a half years in prison. Gallegos pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges earlier this year following an arrest in July 2022.

According to information released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, Gallegos was living in the U.S. under asylum protection — meaning that he could not be deported at the time of his multiple offenses. Court documents show that he had been arrested several times and had been sent to prison two times before, once in 2015 and once in 2017, on human smuggling charges. During the sentencing hearing, Crane said Gallegos had “committed a serious abuse of the system” and ordered that he be deported after completing his sentence.

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According to prosecutors, Gallegos leased a house in McAllen and used it to house more than 200 migrants who were being moved into the country and on to the north. At the time of his arrest in July 2022, authorities found 35 migrants inside the stash house.

A criminal complaint from October 2014 revealed that Gallegos helped carry out a smuggling attempt where they used scouts and various vehicles to move migrants in and out of a stash house. After authorities raided that house, they found 15 migrants and learned that Gallegos had also been arrested in February 2014 but his charges had been “dropped.” Court documents do not reveal a reason for the dismissal of the charges. In the October 2014 case, Gallegos pleaded guilty and received a prison sentence of one year and four months.

In February 2017, federal authorities arrested Gallegos near McCook, Texas, where he was in charge of a stash house. Court documents revealed that Gallegos would bring food and water and coordinate the migrants being taken and removed from the house. In that case, Gallegos also pleaded guilty and received a prison sentence of two years and three months.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.