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Woman arrested in smuggling case
Federal agents say they are continuing to look for 3 men

By John Scheibe, jscheibe@VenturaCountyStar.com
June 6, 2006

Federal agents Monday arrested an Arizona woman who they say specialized in smuggling babies and children into the United States, all part of an extensive human-trafficking ring based in Oxnard.

Norma Higinia Felix de Sanchez, 41, was arrested at the San Luis Port of Entry on the Arizona-Mexico border near Yuma, Ariz., by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents.

Felix de Sanchez was expected to appear in federal court in Yuma on Monday afternoon to face four criminal counts, including smuggling immigrants into the country as well as harboring and transporting them inside the United States.

Her arrest followed a Thursday night raid at an Oxnard trailer park where agents arrested Juan Ramirez-Ramirez, 37, of Oxnard, who is suspected of running a ring that brought as many as 100 undocumented immigrants a month into the country. Ramirez-Ramirez allegedly ran the ring for more than a year, charging immigrants from $1,600 to as much as $2,800 to cross the border.

The operation netted more than $2 million, according to federal authorities.

Agents also arrested sisters Maria Margarita Renovato-Rangel, 24, and Maria de Jesus Renovato-Rangel, 29, both of Oxnard; Joel Rodriguez-Vargas, 27, of Riverside and Manual Leon-Morales, 62, of Los Angeles.

Agents also found a 9-month-old baby girl they suspect was smuggled into the country. The girl was turned over to her mother Saturday, according to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement press release.

The information did not state where the mother was.

Wait to be driven to Oxnard

Court records state that Ramirez-Ramirez would tell anyone wanting to enter the United States to meet at the Hotel Internacional in San Luis Rio Colorado in Sonora, Mexico, not far from where Felix de Sanchez, a Yuma resident, was arrested.

Once across the border, the immigrants would be left at drop houses in Yuma to wait, sometimes for weeks, until they could be driven to Oxnard.

Agents continued looking Monday for three men suspected of being part of the smuggling ring. They are:

n Martin Garcia Lujan, 41, of Yuma. Lujan is suspected of maintaining a drop house in Yuma for Ramirez-Ramirez, according to court documents.

n Cesar Huerta Alcazar, 25, of Riverside, who is suspected of operating drop houses in Yuma and of arranging for immigrants to be taken to Oxnard. Alcazar has been deported to Mexico six times for being here illegally, according to court documents.

n Dario Rodriguez Vargas, 25, also of Riverside, who is suspected of taking the smuggled immigrants to Oxnard.

Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said immigrant smuggling is very common in Southern California.

"What makes this case so unusual is to uncover a smuggling organization that's entirely based in the United States, from the leadership all the way down to the coyotes" or smugglers, he said.

Mrozek knows of only two other smuggling rings based entirely in the United States that have come to the attention of federal prosecutors in Los Angeles. One involved a Ukrainian smuggling ring; another brought in Korean women, he said.

"The top leaders of smuggling rings tend to be based in Mexico," he said.

A transportation hub

Lori Haley, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it's common to have drop houses throughout the Los Angeles area because it serves as a transportation hub for the rest of the nation.

David Wales, resident agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Ventura County, said he's not surprised that the smuggling ring was based in Oxnard given the county's large agricultural industry.

The industry typically serves as "a huge draw for workers," Wales said.

No matter if they arrive legally or illegally, workers will go to where there's a need for their labor, Wales said.

Wales acknowledged that the recent arrests will likely only have a small effect on the trafficking of illegal immigrants.

Still, he said it's important that authorities do everything possible to stop illegal trafficking.

"When we have people coming into the country and we don't know who they are, that presents a huge security problem," Wales said.

Wales said some of Ramirez-Ramirez's neighbors alerted authorities to their suspicions that he could be involved in immigrant smuggling.

"We depend on people like them to be our eyes and ears," said Wales, noting that without the help of neighbors, it probably would have been much harder to break up the smuggling ring.

Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in immigration law, said immigrants once crossed the border without coyotes.

However, as tightened enforcement by the Border Patrol made it harder to cross, undocumented immigrants have come to depend more on coyotes.

Tougher enforcement "has made the trafficking of immigrants a lot more profitable for the smugglers," Shusterman said.

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