Thread: TX: detention workers charged in scheme to smuggle immigran

4 detention workers charged in scheme to smuggle immigrants


Associated Press - November 13, 2007 5:55 PM ET

SARITA, Texas (AP) - Four workers at a detention center in Texas are held on charges they used company vehicles to smuggle illegal immigrants through checkpoints.

Carlos Miguel Garcia and Benjamin Lopez Sanchez -- both of Raymondville -- were arrested after being stopped Thursday at the Sarita (suh-REE'-tuh) checkpoint.

Officials say 28 illegal immigrants were in the company van.

Both men are charged with transporting illegal immigrants.

Juan Trevino Junior and Alberto Vasquez -- both of Harlingen -- were arrested Sunday at their homes.

They're charged with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants.

All four work for Utah-based Management Training, which runs the Willacy County Detention Center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Management Training officials didn't immediately comment.

If convicted, the four men face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

Trevino and Vasquez have a detention hearing Friday in Brownsville.

http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=7355323&nav=2FH5

Where have I seen this pattern before? Hispanic smuggling hispanic.

I am sure that the US congressamn Rep. Ceullar....will bail them out and give them the Congressional Metal of Mexico (if they have one in Mexico)

Bond set for detention officers accused in immigrant smuggling ring


Allen Essex (Valley Morning Star)
November 16, 2007 - 8:59PM
BROWNSVILLE — A federal judge has set cash bonds of $150,000 on two detention center officers accused in what authorities say was an illegal immigrant smuggling ring operating out of the Willacy County Detention Center.

Juan Treviño Jr., 27, and Alberto Vasquez, 37, both of Harlingen, appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Felix Recio.

Recio originally set Treviño’s bond at $50,000, which would have allowed him to post $5,000 cash. But the judge raised the amount to match the bond for Vasquez after hearing testimony from a federal agent that Treviño is believed to be the ringleader of what he called a smuggling operation.

Recio said he had made a mistake by setting a lower bond for Treviño and raised it.

The agent said in court that the ring had smuggled illegal immigrants on more than one occasion, and Vasquez was a driver of a van that transported them.

Federal investigators have charged the men with operating a smuggling operation in which illegal immigrants who were picked up at locations around Harlingen were transported in a van owned by the company that provides security at the detention center in Raymondville.

They are charged with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants between Sept. 1 and Nov. 8.

Treviño and Vasquez will be moved as soon as possible to Corpus Christi, where co-defendants Carlos Miguel Garcia, 36, and Benjamin Lopez Sanchez, 36, of Raymondville, are being held on charges that they were involved in the smuggling ring.

Treviño and Vasquez were sergeants at the detention center in Raymondville while Garcia and Sanchez were detention officers there, officials said.

The four worked for Utah-based Management Training Corp., which provides security services for the detention center, authorities said.

Recio ordered U.S. marshals to keep the men separated upon the request of Vasquez’s attorney, Rey Cantu, former Cameron County district attorney. Cantu declined to explain why they should be separated.

Cantu argued there was no evidence that Vasquez had done anything except to give van keys to other drivers and that it was his job to turn over keys to drivers.

But the agent testified Vasquez has been the driver on several trips during which illegal immigrants were smuggled past a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint.

Garcia and Sanchez were arrested last week when Border Patrol agents at the Sarita checkpoint discovered 28 illegal immigrants, unshackled and carrying luggage, in a company van, officials said. The other two men were arrested Sunday in Harlingen.

Recio said the reason he was setting the high bonds was to ensure that the two Harlingen defendants are quickly moved to Corpus Christi, where all four defendants will be prosecuted.


www.themonitor.com