http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/5846591.html

Illegal Immigrants Found In Texas “Drop House”

(February 15, 2007)--Federal officials arrested 46 illegal immigrants who were being held in dirty conditions and behind locked doors at a Houston drop house.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Luisa Deason says an anonymous call led agents to the house in north Houston Wednesday.

Officials believe smugglers were holding the illegal immigrants in the house until their friends or relatives could "buy them out."

Deason described the conditions as "deplorable," with the 46 people kept in four or five bedrooms.

The 46 immigrants included ten women and eight juveniles between the ages of 8 and 17.

The group was made up of 19 Hondurans, eleven Mexicans, ten El Salvadorans, five Guatemalans and one Brazilian.

Deason says the agents also arrested nine other people suspected of being involved in human smuggling.