Migrants Placed in Danger by Smugglers

EDINBURG, Texas –Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol (RGV) agents and local law enforcement partners worked together to disrupt dangerous human smuggling efforts.

On Dec. 26, at approximately 1:00 p.m., the Harlingen Police Department received a 911 call from a Guatemalan migrant who claimed he and others were being held against their will at a home. Harlingen Border Patrol Station agents alongside Harlingen Police Department officers responded to the residence suspected of harboring illegally present migrants. A total of seven migrants were discovered in the home and safely secured in Border Patrol custody. The caretaker, a Honduran citizen, was located and will be prosecuted under state charges.

On Dec. 27, at approximately 3:00 a.m., a black Freightliner truck hauling a trailer arrived at the Javier Vega Jr. Border Patrol Checkpoint for inspection. The commercial vehicle was referred to the secondary inspection area following a K9 alert. The trailer doors did not have a lock, however, they were tied together with a metal wire. Four migrants from El Salvador were found hiding between the pallets. The migrants would not have been able to exit the trailer on their own.

On Dec. 24, at approximately 8:00 a.m., several migrants entered a gray SUV half a mile away from a marked Border Patrol vehicle near the Anzalduas Bridge in Mission, Texas. The agent requested assistance from a Customs and Border Protection air asset which followed the vehicle to 26th Street and U.S. 83 Frontage Road where it stopped due to heavy traffic. Agents, alongside Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Mission Police Department officers, approached the vehicle and apprehended five migrants to include a 12-year-old female Mexican national. The driver exited the vehicle in an attempt to abscond but was arrested in the nearby area. The driver is a citizen of Mexico.