Thread: Smuggler to be sentenced in immigrant deaths case

Smuggler to be sentenced in immigrant deaths case

khou.com
Associated Press

Posted on November 30, 2011 at 9:17 AM

Updated today at 9:17 AM

MCALLEN, Texas -- A Mexican man is to be sentenced in the 2004 drowning of nine Central American immigrants when the vehicle in which they were being smuggled fell into a South Texas canal.

Joel Cardenas-Meneses is to be sentenced Wednesday in McAllen on 11 counts of bringing and harboring illegal immigrants. Prosecutors say Cardenas-Meneses was in charge of recruiting Central American immigrants for the smuggling ring, getting them to the border city of Reynosa, Mexico, and coordinating their trips across the Rio Grande.

On Aug. 9, 2004, a 17-year-old was driving the immigrants away from the river with his headlights off one night when he drove into a canal, drowning nine immigrants, all Honduran and Salvadoran citizens. Several co-defendants have been sentenced to about two years to 15 years in prison.

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Smu ... 49918.html

MCALLEN, Texas -- A Mexican man is to be sentenced in the 2004 drowning of nine Central American immigrants when the vehicle in which they were being smuggled fell into a South Texas canal.

=====================================

The United States now incarcerates more prisoners than any other nation on earth.

Our local, State, and Federal jails and prisons are saturated with illegal alien prisoners, and the prison industry is one of the very few industries in the United States that is absolutely BOOMING.

This incident occurred seven years ago, and look how long it has been tied up in an already overwhelmed judicial system.