EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal grand jury indicted three men in connection with the apprehension of 25 migrants from Pakistan, Peru and Mexico earlier this year at a mobile home in Anthony, New Mexico.
Dilan Karim Valenzuela Baca, Cirilo Delgado Alderete and Antelmo Eligio Ramirez Bernardo are facing multiple charges of conspiracy, transportation and harboring of illegal aliens stemming from an April 27 “knock-and-talk” operation by U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigation agents.
The agencies received information that several individuals who entered the United States illegally were staying at a home on Adams Street in that small New Mexico community just north of the state line from El Paso County, Texas.
The agents set up surveillance near the home and saw three parked vehicles they believe were previously used to transport migrants to Albuquerque.
The agents approached the home when they saw a man exit the residence; he identified himself as a Guatemalan national and said he did not have any documents to be in the U.S. legally, court documents show.
More agents arrived shortly after. They knocked at the door of the mobile home, received permission to enter and allegedly found at least a dozen individuals in the bedroom. A comprehensive search of the entire property led to the apprehension of 25 Pakistanis, Peruvians, Mexicans, Dominicans, Hondurans and Guatemalans, according to an arrest affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Interviews with the migrants revealed most had entered the U.S. by scaling the border wall in El Paso and being picked up by vehicles that brought them to Anthony. The interviews also pointed to three of their housemates as allegedly overseeing their housing and transportation.
Ramirez, the man border agents saw coming out of the mobile home and being in possession of the keys to a car and to the house, said he was a Guatemalan citizen and declined to answer any more questions, court documents show.
Delgado and Valenzuela allegedly admitting to picking up the migrants at stores and parking lots in El Paso after they jumped the wall. They allegedly gave agents consent to search their cellphones and stated they had previously transported migrants to Albuquerque – during a sandstorm that prompted the Border Patrol to temporarily close their checkpoint on Interstate 25 north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Delgado told agents he would get paid 10,000 Mexican pesos ($500) to transport the migrants in the home to Albuquerque, while Valenzuela said he was owed $4,000 by the smugglers he agreed to work for as part of a deal to slash his own border-crossing fees and make some money on the side, court documents show.
The three defendants have a June 9 arraignment hearing in U.S. District Court in El Paso.
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