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Friday, February 17, 2006

Immigration agents take 13 people in Kernersville lot into U.S. custody

By Wesley Young
JOURNAL REPORTER

KERNERSVILLE

Federal immigration agents took 13 people into custody yesterday afternoon in the parking lot of a Kernersville shopping center, after someone saw the people climbing from the back of a rental truck.

Sgt. Gary Moore of the Kernersville Police Department said that an anonymous caller called police shortly after noon. A police officer questioned three people standing near the truck and found out that they had Mexican identification documents, Moore said.

The three acknowledged to police that they were in the country illegally, Moore said, so police contacted the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Department of Homeland Security.

"That is the first time in my career that I have had a call on my shift of people getting out of the back of a rental truck," Moore said. The truck was in the lot of the Union Cross Station shopping center.

Other police officers arrived and rounded up the people who had been riding in the truck. They included an 8-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, along with 10 men and one woman. Moore said that two men tried to run away when an officer approached, but were stopped after a foot chase.

It turned out that the group had stopped to use the restroom and get something to drink, Moore said. The truck was rented in Conway, Ark., on Wednesday. Members of the group said they were traveling to Oklahoma, Moore said.

An Immigration agent, Thomas O'Connell, said that the two children would be released to the custody of their father in Minnesota, but that all of the aliens now face deportation. However, the people would not be kept in custody unless they pose a threat to community safety or national security. One factor that investigators will consider is whether any of the people in custody were part of a human-smuggling effort.

"They are in the back of a 12-foot truck," O'Connell said. "Our major concern is that when you get these box trucks and they are coming from the border and you have children, it is not uncommon for heat prostration, carbon monoxide and things that would escalate this to an egregious level."

• Wesley Young can be reached at 992-0067 or at wyoung@wsjournal.com