Posted: Friday, July 5, 2013 9:24 pm

Jacob Fischler | The Monitor

MERCEDES – Three men are in federal custody after U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested them Monday for keeping a human stash house that held 84 people suspected of being in the country illegally.

An anonymous tip to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations led agents to the house in the 7400 block of Eden Street, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Border Patrol agents surveyed the property June 30 and July 1 to corroborate the tip.

They saw three large SUVs – all Chevrolet Suburbans – at the property at different times. On Monday morning, they watched a white Suburban arrive at the back of the house and unload about 15 people into the house.

Agents saw the driver going into the house and coming out moments later. He left in a different Suburban and headed down Mile 12 Road, driving fast and on the wrong side of the road.

Hidalgo County constables stopped the SUV for reckless driving. Both the driver – Rudolfo Peña, a Honduran national either 23 or 24 years old – and the passenger – a Mexican man who’d been living at the stash house – told authorities they did not have permission to be in the United States.

About 1 p.m. that day, another man left the property in the white Suburban. Hidalgo County constables pulled him over for a minor traffic violation and questioned him as to his citizenship. The driver – Victor Hugo Morales, a native of Mexico – told them he did not have documentation to be legally in the country.

About 45 minutes later, Border Patrol agents and Hidalgo County constables raided the house and found 84 people, including Miguel Angel Rodriguez, a Honduran national who told them he was in charge of the house. His responsibilities included feeding the people and ordering them to be quiet and stay indoors. He also kept a baseball bat inside a locked pantry to threaten the unauthorized immigrants, a witness told authorities.

Rodriguez said a man named “Ramiro” would pay him $30 a week for his work. He identified Morales and Peña as the people responsible for bringing food and humans to the house.

Morales told investigators that he was paid $5 per person he brought to the house. He said he had been doing so for about two months, and had made about $600. By that calculation, he transported 120 people total, or about two per day. He identified Peña and Rodriguez as the people responsible for caring for the house.

Peña admitted to transporting eight subjects, but denied knowing they were human contraband. He said he was not paid and thought that he was “only giving them a ride.” He said he was instructed to do so by an anonymous male caller who told him to meet at a watermill in Pharr.

Three people who’d been taken to the house – two from Mexico and one from Honduras – gave statements to authorities. All of them identified Rodriguez, Morales and Peña as the people responsible for the house and said that Peña had dropped off people at the house at least three times.

They said they had been living at the house for between 11 and 14 days.

One man said the immigrants were without clean drinking water and that the house was crowded but air-conditioned.

Another witness said he paid $1,500 to a smuggler named “Lupe” who helped him cross the border. The witness was then taken immediately to the Mercedes house.

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local...9bb30f31a.html