Thread: El Paso hotel turned into migrant stash house

BORDER CRIME


El Paso hotel turned into migrant stash house



by: Julian Resendiz
Posted: Jan 5, 2024 / 01:49 PM CST
Updated: Jan 5, 2024 / 01:49 PM CST








Border Patrol finds 39 unauthorized non-citizens, cache of cellphones in one of several rooms rented out by men taking them to Albuquerque

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EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A failed smuggling attempt in Deming, New Mexico, led border agents to an El Paso hotel housing 39 undocumented migrants.

The migrants were being kept incommunicado by men who took their cellphones and kept them in four overcrowded rooms where they fed them water and pizza, court records show.

The men drove them in vehicles with fake temporary paper license plates from neighborhoods near the border wall to the hotel in South Central El Paso, where they waited to be transported to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A federal grand jury in El Paso on Wednesday indicted Ramon Martinez Unzueta, Angel de la Cruz Torres and Andres de la Cruz Torres on charges of conspiracy and transporting illegal aliens for profit in connection with their Dec. 5 arrest.

Records show agents with the Anti-Smuggling Unit of the U.S. Border Patrol learned of a place in El Paso holding up to 50 migrants after stopping a driver trying to take migrants past a Deming highway checkpoint.

Trucker: ‘Men with guns made me drive migrants past checkpoint’

The unit set up surveillance on the hotel on East Paisano Drive and agents observed individuals prepping three vehicles with false temporary plates for a long trip.

Agents moved in on the drivers, who turned out to be unauthorized non-citizens themselves.

Records show Martinez agreed to talk to the agents and led them to room 203 at the hotel, where Andres de la Cruz answered the door. The agents came in and saw a large, clear bag holding at least 30 cell phones; they also observed pizza boxes and several hotel room keys on a table.

The Anti-Smuggling Unit proceeded to rooms 200, 204, and 307, taking 39 unauthorized non-citizens into custody. Photos released by the Border Patrol show migrants lined up against the wall in a hallway and several women among the group.







Records show De la Cruz allegedly told agents he holds a legitimate B1/B2 border crossing card and had been transporting unauthorized migrants daily since entering the U.S. three weeks prior.

De la Cruz allegedly said he gets paid $400 for each migrant he takes past highway checkpoints on the way to Albuquerque and that he employed a “lookout” on Interstate 25 to monitor Border Patrol.

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Records show Martinez said he was smuggled into the United States because he needed work and that the man who smuggled him offered him a job transporting other unauthorized foreign nationals.

Angel de la Cruz allegedly said his brother Andres was a smuggler, so he came across the border to work with him.

The suspects are scheduled for arraignment on Jan. 16 in U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne T. Berton’s courtroom in El Paso.


https://www.borderreport.com/immigra...t-stash-house/