Free Republic

PHOENIX - People who hire "coyotes" to get them into this country can be prosecuted under a state law aimed at the smugglers, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. In the first decision of its kind in the state, the judges rebuffed even the comments of Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, one of the architects of the 2005 legislation, that it was never designed to go after the immigrants themselves. Judge Lawrence Winthrop, writing for the court, said it is possible that Paton may have intended that the migrants be considered the victims of the crime of human smuggling. "This...

Monday, 31 March 2008 ICE-led probe results in criminal and civil forfeitures of more than $1 million PHOENIX - A federal judge has sentenced the last of the 13 owners and former owners of six motels in Mesa, Ariz., who were indicted after a probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed they were using their businesses to harbor illegal aliens in support of organized human smuggling. U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Martone imposed sentences of probation, fines and forfeiture on the final two defendants in the case March 26. The owners of the motels on Mesa's Main Street...

McALLEN — A couple was sentenced Friday to about five years in prison each for running a large-scale human smuggling operation. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa sentenced Hortensia Sanchez-Rodriguez and Emilio Anguiano-Santoyo to 60 and 63 months, respectively, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Houston. The statement goes on to say that the couple was responsible for smuggling about 250 illegal immigrants from Miguel Alemán to Roma and arranging their transport to Houston during a period from March 2004 to September 2005. The court docket reads that there was evidence through recorded telephone conversations that the...

LUBBOCK, Texas- Three men caught transporting illegal immigrants after one of their vehicles crashed, killing a Mexican national, have pleaded guilty to federal smuggling charges. The men, each from Cleburne, entered their pleas Thursday and face up to 10 years in prison after trying to smuggle as many as 13 immigrants before one of their cars rolled near El Dorado after blowing a tire. Prosecutors say Jorge Luis Castro-Garcia, Jesse Cano and Agustin Anorga organized a smuggling ring that included each immigrant paying Castro-Garcia $1,500 to be transported from Mexico to Cleburne. Each drove separate vehicles but Anorga crashed his...

Nine of 48 illegal immigrants charged with conspiracy to smuggle humans — themselves — pleaded guilty to lesser charges Tuesday and will be deported under an agreement with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. They join four other immigrants who recently agreed to the deal, pleading guilty to solicitation to smuggle. In addition to deportation, the border crossers were placed on two years of probation. The 48 immigrants were the first in the county to be charged with conspiracy to smuggle humans — a unique interpretation of a state law aimed at cracking down on coyotes, who are paid by immigrants...

A fourth, but perhaps not last, suspect was arrested in a Port Isabel human smuggling ring that used luxury boats to bypass border patrol checkpoints, federal authorities said. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents arrested Breakaway Cruises Manager Robert M. Moore on a felony human smuggling charge Wednesday. Moore was arrested wearing a Breakaway Cruises T-shirt and held at the Brownsville City Jail before appearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge John William Black Thursday morning, according to jail records. A criminal complaint shows Moore is accused of accepting $9,000 from alleged human smuggling “middleman” Luis Alberto Gutierrez-Zapien to take six immigrants...

LA GLORIA — Authorities are trying to determine the nationality of six people, five men and one woman, who died in a two-vehicle collision at about 6 a.m. today just south of La Gloria on U.S. 281. Officials are trying to recreate the incident, but it appears the collision took place as a Ford pickup going east on Country Road 405 turned onto 281 and was struck by an 18-wheeler carrying automobiles and going southbound on 281 toward Falfurrias, according to Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Ryan Rippee. The 2005 Ford F-150 pickup flipped on its side and landed...

ABC13 Eyewitness News (6/01/05 - WEST UNIVERSITY, TX) — Residents in West University witnessed a chaotic and unsettling scene as close to 100 undocumented immigrants were released in their neighborhood. It happened just after 4:30pm Tuesday. Police say a U-Haul truck pulled up to the intersection of Cason and Wakeforest and unloaded the undocumented immigrants. They also say the human smugglers pulled over after the immigrants locked in the back of the truck rocked it back and forth to get their attention. "They said they'd been in the Houston area for about 24 hours, but they were in the U-Haul...

Federal and state authorities are investigating a nuclear terrorist threat against Boston after a man calling from Mexico told California police that he smuggled two Iraqis and four Chinese over the border, the Boston Herald has learned. ``They got a call from across the border in Mexico to the California Highway Patrol and he said he brought two Iraqis and four Chinese (individuals) across the border and according to him, they stated soon to follow behind them would be some sort of material,'' said a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation. ``He refers to some sort of nuclear material...

OCTOBER 9, 2004 - A smuggling ring involving children backfires. Sources tell Action 4 News questions are being raised on what role if any a CNN news crew played in the illegal operation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells Action 4 News two women were arrested Thursday night at the Veterans International Bridge in Brownsville while trying to cross five Mexican children into the United States illegally. U.S. Customs says everyone in the car was detained and adds CNN reporters were not authorized to be at the bridge and were asked to leave. The two unidentified women reportedly said they...

Anderson Examines Devastating Impact of Invasion, Life on the Border By Dennis Durband, Editor In the interior of Mexico, there is a labor shortage. There are no Americans available to do the jobs that Mexicans won't do. However, the travel industry is thriving. And these are great days for “coyotes” – human smugglers – and those in drug trafficking. Travelers from South and Central America, Mexico and other nations are traveling in great numbers up through Hermosillo, Mexico and to northern staging locations near the U.S. border. These people can go to a Catholic church in one of the Mexican...

DOUGLAS, Ariz. - They were barely old enough to cross a street by themselves, much less a border. But there they were, alone on a hot August evening at a United States immigration checkpoint, surrounded by law enforcement officers wearing badges and guns. Eight-year-old José Cruz Velázquez held the hand of his brother Sergio, who was 6. The Mexican boys had been seized from a smuggler hired by their parents living without legal papers in Pennsylvania. They were two of a growing number of children traveling without families who have been snared in the net that American and Mexican agents...

Seventeen undocumented immigrants believed to be heading to the Midwest were found Thursday in Alamogordo, most of them hiding in a locked railroad container car where the heat inside exceeded 100 degrees, officials said. The illegal crossing was the fourth this week and second in this region involving large numbers of people discovered by authorities. In one smuggling attempt Wednesday, 19 immigrants died in a tractor-trailer in Victoria, Texas, where on Friday officials discovered another rig with undocumented immigrants. Paul Beeson, assistant chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso, said the four cases don't appear to...