Free Republic

LADWIN, Mich. – A tour company based in northern Michigan has been ordered by federal transportation officials to cease operations and take its coaches out of service after six people were found traveling in the luggage compartment of bus in Ohio. The operations out-of-service order named Roger Haines and Haines Tours of Gladwin. Issued Friday by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the order claims that on May 27 an Ohio State Highway Patrol officer found six of 62 passengers in a luggage area during an inspection of a bus traveling from Roscommon, Mich., to Clyde, Ohio.

Describing their experiences with a smuggling ring authorities say is responsible for the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants, two Honduran women said they were shuttled back and forth between cramped houses, where they sometimes waited for days. Doris Sulema Argueta and her sister-in-law, Maria Leticia Lara-Castro, testified today how the ring hid them in small rooms, mobile homes and houses, sometimes 60 to 80 people in one location. Prosecutors contend the ring eventually packed the two women and more than 70 other illegal immigrants inside an airless truck trailer that traveled from South Texas to Houston in May 2003. The...