Thread: 25 undocumented migrants 'held hostage' in California

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=94172

25 undocumented migrants 'held hostage' in California: US agents
12-29-2005, 21h52
LOS ANGELES (AFP)

US immigration authorities said they discovered 25 undocumented migrants from Latin America being "held hostage" by human smugglers in a Los Angeles neighborhood.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents went to a home in Riverside, some 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of downtown Los Angeles, where they found 25 migrants crowded into two of the upstairs bedrooms.

The migrants, who came from Ecuador, Guatemala, and El Salvador, said they had been held for more than a month and fed only once a day, said ICE spokesman Virginia Kice.

"They make people enter the US illegally," said Kice. Then they "hold them in so-called drop houses where they make arrangements for the relatives to pay the balance of the smuggling fees."

But the smugglers then typically "double the price and ... contact the relatives to extort more money.

"They were essentially held hostage in this house," she said.

ICE agents arrested two Guatemalan men who served as "enforcers" when they raided the house early Wednesday.

The two are to face federal human smuggling and hostage taking charges, Kice said.

The 25 migrants are still being interviewed, and some are expected to remain in California as material witnesses in the smuggling prosecution, Kice said.

They make people enter the U.S. illegally? Huh?

The 25 migrants are still being interviewed, and some are expected to remain in California as material witnesses in the smuggling prosecution, Kice said.

I wonder how many will actually leave after the trial........

Originally Posted by JohnB2012

The 25 migrants are still being interviewed, and some are expected to remain in California as material witnesses in the smuggling prosecution, Kice said.

I wonder how many will actually leave after the trial........

All will be allowed to stay in the US if they testify against the smugglers who "make people enter the US illegally".