AZMEX I3 15-3-19

AZMEX I3 15 MAR 2019


Immigrant smugglers target NM border
BY MIKE GALLAGHER / JOURNAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
Published: Thursday, March 14th, 2019 at 11:35pm
Updated: Thursday, March 14th, 2019 at 11:35pm

https://www.abqjournal.com/1292230/immigrant-smugglers-target-nm-border.html


More than 60 immigrants from Guatemala and Ecuador were kept in this shed attached to a fifth-wheel trailer. (Source: Federal Court Exhibit)
Copyright © 2019 Albuquerque Journal

From high-end operations catering to Brazilians to overcrowded stash houses in rural New Mexico, organized criminal groups are smuggling immigrants into the U.S. through New Mexico's southern border using the crush of asylum seekers from Central America and elsewhere as cover.

Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol agents have identified several organized criminal groups that have been smuggling immigrants across the southern border to ultimate destinations in Alabama, New Jersey, Tennessee and elsewhere.

Over the last year, federal agents have arrested human smugglers in the small towns of Hachita in New Mexico's Bootheel and Dexter south of Roswell as well as Albuquerque and Birmingham, Ala.

On Wednesday, Maximo Gonzalez-Sebastian, one of three men arrested in connection with a stash house in Roswell, was convicted in federal court in Las Cruces on charges of hostage taking and conspiracy. Gonzalez-Sebastian, who had a Guatemalan passport on him when he was arrested, could face up to 20 years in federal prison.

Two of his associates have already pleaded guilty and also await sentencing.

U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson
"We are making a concentrated effort to investigate and prosecute organizations involved in human trafficking," U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson said, adding that includes both smugglers and those taking advantage of asylum seekers.

"It is a more diverse immigrant population than we've seen in the past," he said. "New Mexico is primarily a transit point" for people entering the country either illegally or through the asylum process.

Efforts to control the numbers of people arriving at the official ports of entry seeking asylum have led people to "self surrender" to Border Patrol agents at more remote areas of the border like the small port of entry in New Mexico's Bootheel at Antelope Wells or the deserts outside Deming.

Under U.S. law, migrant families who have requested asylum are typically released to join relatives or sponsors recruited by charities in other parts of the country. They will be issued a Notice to Appear in immigration court for their asylum hearing.

This has led to a flood of asylum seeking immigrants – more than 76,000 in the El Paso sector, which includes all of New Mexico's border, in February alone. Customs and Border Patrol agents say they have been so overwhelmed in processing and finding medical attention when needed that they are concerned they are missing criminal smuggling operations and drug runners.

Business booming

The asylum wave is a boom for smugglers.

In a recently unsealed search warrant, agents from Homeland Security Investigations said three Guatemalan families independently gave agents at the Border Patrol headquarters in Deming the same contact information – the phone number and address for what turned out to be a billiards parlor in Nashville, Tenn.

One woman told the agents she was recruited and smuggled through Mexico by a man named "Geronimo" and contacted him at the Tennessee phone number while they traveled through Mexico.

There was no answer when the Journal called the telephone number several times this week.

Agents believe "Geronimo" is connected to the Bartolo Alien Smuggling Organization, which has operated in Mexico and Guatemala for a number of years, generating more than $5 million for the organization.

The promises Geronimo makes are similar to other smugglers', but his have been consistent for the last several years.

One of the women who talked to agents said she made a down payment of 15,000 quetzals (approximately $1,950 U.S.) for her and her son to be smuggled into the U.S. She was promised a job in the U.S. to pay the remainder of the smuggling fee.

END