Homeland Security Investigations special agents arrested 70 migrants during the past week in human smuggling stash houses being operated out of short-term rental properties. HSI officials say the use of these type of rental properties to warehouse migrants is a growing trend.
“Airbnb stash houses is a new trend. It’s become the popular alternative to motels or hotels because smugglers can book them online in their home country, and check-in remotely without having to meet the property owner in person,” Jason T. Stevens, acting special agent of HSI El Paso, told CBSNews4. At times, the smugglers tend to damage the Airbnb property at the owner’s expense.”
HSI special agents assigned to the Border Enforcement Security Task Force teamed up with Border Patrol agents and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to raid a series of human smuggling stash houses in El Paso.
In one case, an AirBnB property owner contacted law enforcement to report the illegal use of the home. Inside the home, the law enforcement team found ten men, two women, and a 16-year-old child, officials reported. The migrants came to the U.S. from Mexico and Guatemala.
A U.S. citizen was arrested at the stash house on human smuggling charges. DPS officials told the local CBS affiliate that the migrants were “crammed into small quarters.”
Two days earlier, HSI agents arrested 56 more migrants from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala at a second stash house being operated in the El Paso area, according to MYSA.com. During a 12-month period ending in March 2024, HSI officials report the arrest of nearly 2,300 migrants in El Paso-area stash houses.
“Human smugglers prey on the desperation of foreign nationals with hopes of coming to the United States to chase the American dream,” Stevens said. “However, what they encounter is the American nightmare in the hands of callous transnational criminal organizations who see them as nothing else than merchandise.”
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday morning talk show. He also serves as president of Blue Wonder Gun Care Products.