FALFURRIAS, Texas — Agents with the U.S. Border Patrol found an illegal immigrant stuffed inside a suitcase at an immigration checkpoint 80 miles north from the Texas border. As part of the case, agents also arrested two other illegal immigrants and three suspected human smugglers that were traveling in the same vehicle.
The arrest took place earlier this week when Norma Isela Alaniz drove a red Chevrolet Tahoe with two other women and a man in the vehicle to the Falfurrias inspection station, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed.
At the checkpoint one of the agents asked Alaniz and the other two women some questions about where they were from and where they were going. When the agent asked Guillermo Hernandez Granadero if he was a U.S. citizen, the man replied “yes”, however when the agent asked where he was born the man gave himself away by looking confused and replying “yes”.
The agent asked further questions, but Hernandez stayed quiet and that is when he had the group go into a secondary inspection where they confirmed that Hernandez was in the country illegally.
When the agents checked the vehicle they found another illegal immigrant inside, however the situation turned even weirder when the agents found that in one of the suitcases, the women had stuffed another illegal immigrant.
Alaniz and the two other women who were identified as Dalia Isela Hinojosa and Amy Navarro all refused to speak with investigators and asked for an attorney.
Jose Zepeda Amador, the illegal immigrant who was in the suitcase told the agents that he had paid the women $1,000 to be smuggled from South Texas to Houston and they had told him to get in the suitcase. Two other two illegal immigrants also told agents that they had crossed into the country illegally and had paid the women to be smuggled to Houston.
The three women went before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jason B. Libby on Wednesday in Corpus Christi. Libby formally charged the three women and ordered they be held. The judge also ordered that the three illegal immigrants be held as material witnesses in the case.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.