Thread: Border Patrol nabs 77 in two drop house busts

Border Patrol nabs 77 in two drop house busts

FROM STAFF REPORTS
May 20, 2005


A total of 77 illegal aliens were in Border Patrol custody Thursday after a tip led patrol agents to two homes in north Yuma where they were staying, the patrol said.

Joe Brigman, spokesman for the patrol's Yuma sector, said the two homes located south of 1st Street and between Avenues A and B were being used as drop houses to hide the aliens, all Mexican adults, until smugglers could arrange for trans- portation.

Thursday morning's apprehensions followed the arrests of at least 171 aliens at four other drop houses in Yuma over the past 1 1/2 weeks.

The drop house busts reflect increasing use of the Yuma area as a corridor for moving aliens into the United States, said Brigman.

"Our (illegal) entry and apprehension numbers (in the Yuma area) are continuing to rise," he said. "We have commercial alien smugglers in the area that we're working very hard to deter and arrest."

Since the start of the current fiscal year on Oct. 1, the patrol has arrested 86,626 illegal aliens in the Yuma sector, which extends from the California border to the Yuma-Pima county line. That's up from 53,650 aliens apprehended in the sector during the corresponding period a year ago.

Brigman said entries and apprehensions are spiking partly because smuggling routes have shifted to and through Yuma County in response to a beefed-up Border Patrol presence elsewhere on the border.

"They (aliens) are going to try to go where we are not," he said.

Another factor in rising arrest numbers are new or different enforcement strategies being used in the Yuma sector, he said.

The aliens apprehended Thursday morning told agents they paid an average of $1,800 apiece to be smuggled to various destinations in the Southwest, Brigman said.
Their arrests came after a citizen noticed suspicious activity at the two homes and called the patrol's toll-free tip line, 1-866-999-USBP, at about 8 a.m.

Agents found 25 aliens in the first house they searched and 52 in a second house nearby, Brigman said.

"There were no children" among the aliens, he said. "All were adults, males and females," he said, adding they had been in the houses for two days.

Brigman said the patrol would check databases to determine if any of the aliens were wanted for previous criminal activity in the United States, and then would deport those who were not.

Meanwhile, investigations relating to previously busted drop houses in Yuma are continuing, he said.
http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publish/a ... _16740.php

qote from article:
Since the start of the current fiscal year on Oct. 1, the patrol has arrested 86,626 illegal aliens in the Yuma sector, which extends from the California border to the Yuma-Pima county line. That's up from 53,650 aliens apprehended in the sector during the corresponding period a year ago.

Thats great! But what did they do with them? That's the million dollar question!