EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Federal officials have charged two men with conspiracy to transport illegal aliens in connection to a migrant stash house in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Federal court records show agents with the anti-smuggling unit of the U.S. Border Patrol had set up surveillance near a Las Cruces home where they suspected migrants were being brought in from El Paso, Texas, to await transportation to the interior of the United States.
On Oct. 22, the agents reported seeing multiple individuals gathered in the open garage of the home and moved in to talk to some of them. Records show two men, Francisco Lujan and Sergio Gonzalez, agreed to talk to the agents and allegedly acknowledged undocumented migrants were in the home.
Border agents received consent to enter the house and found 11 foreign nationals who admitted to being in the United States without authorization. The migrants, Lujan, Gonzalez and two unidentified persons who ended up not being charged with crimes were taken to the Las Cruces Border Patrol Station for questioning.
Records show Gonzalez volunteered during an interview that he was hired two months ago by an individual to transport migrants from El Paso to Las Cruces twice a week. Lujan allegedly told investigators he “was responsible” for the migrants staying at the home that he leases in Las Cruces, and that he and Gonzalez have transported migrants to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Gonzalez further stated the migrants would be dropped off near a Border Patrol highway checkpoint and then picked up a short distance north after they went around the checkpoint. He said he would drop off the migrants at a business in Albuquerque, court records show.
The two suspected smugglers made an initial appearance in U.S. Federal Court in Las Cruces on Thursday and have a detention hearing set for Oct. 29 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerry H. Ritter.
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