Immigrant Smuggling Ring Uncovered at McCarran Airport
Another airport open to illegal smuggling.
Federal authorities have uncovered an immigrant smuggling ring that used a commercial flight out of McCarran Airport. Immigration officials say an ongoing crackdown on immigrant smuggling at other airports closer to the Mexican border is creating a smuggling spike at McCarran airport.
Eyewitness News spoke with one official who admits this isn't just an immigration problem -- it's a potentially serious security risk.
Eleven illegal immigrants aboard a Southwest Airlines flight out of Las Vegas bound for Chicago and then Raleigh, North Carolina, but federal agents were waiting to arrest them. It happened Tuesday night after an Air Marshall on board overheard the group of men talking about how they were smuggled into the country to work.
"This is more than an immigration issue; it's a potential security issue," according to Virginia Kice, with the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, which is under the umbrella of the National Homeland Security Department.
Kice says another flight just last spring out of Los Angeles had more than 80 illegals on board the same aircraft. "If you have one-third of your passengers on board the aircraft involved in a smuggling operation there is the potential that they could injure other passengers or jeopardize the flight itself," Kice said.
You may be wondering how this could be allowed in the aftermath of 9/11. But both airline and airport security officials in Las Vegas and Los Angeles tell Eyewitness News their employees are not required by law to verify the legal immigration status of any passenger on a domestic flight. All eleven men presented valid Mexico-issued identification when they boarded in Las Vegas.
But Immigration officials say a crackdown on air smuggling at Los Angeles International last summer netted more than 400 arrests and leads that will eventually help them dismantle several of the largest human smuggling rings in the weeks and months ahead.
