EL PASO, Texas — Two simultaneous traffic stops near El Paso have led to federal alien-smuggling charges against three men, after one stop uncovered a backpack full of cell phones and the other found 53 migrants inside a tractor-trailer, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas says in an account reported on Tuesday, November 10. The stops took place on October 28, and the charges — reported this week as the case surfaced publicly — are allegations: all three men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in federal court.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Texas, via CDLLife and Valley Central News
In the first stop, a U.S. Border Patrol officer conducted an immigration inspection on a semi truck driven by Miguel Angel Debruhl. The officer discovered a backpack full of cell phones in the truck, and Debruhl was placed under arrest, according to the account, which Valley Central News reported from the federal case. A backpack of phones is a detail investigators treat seriously in smuggling cases, prosecutors say in such filings generally, because coordinators use multiple phones to communicate with drivers, stash houses and the people being moved — though the U.S. Attorney's account released so far does not say whose phones these were or what was on them.
Source: Valley Central News via CDLLife
53 migrants found in the second trailer
At the same time, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper pulled over a tractor-trailer driven by Alan Montelongo. Montelongo consented to an inspection of the semi, which revealed 53 migrants inside the trailer. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office account, Montelongo told officers he had agreed to transport the migrants through the Interstate 25 Border Patrol checkpoint in Las Cruces, New Mexico — the interior checkpoint, north of El Paso, where northbound trucks leaving the border region are inspected — and that he would be paid $16,000 for the run, which he would split with Debruhl.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office via CDLLife
Surveillance leads to a third arrest at a suspected stash house
Border Patrol agents then conducted surveillance at a suspected stash house, where they saw Mexican national Abel Delval-Dominguez loading groceries and multiple trash bags into a pickup truck. According to the account, Delval-Dominguez had reportedly been seen in the past transporting migrants between the stash house and the truck yard — the two fixed points, a house where people wait and a yard where trailers are staged, around which trailer-smuggling operations in the El Paso sector are typically organised. He was placed under arrest, and all three men were arrested and charged with alien smuggling. No further information has been released, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office via CDLLife
Background: the checkpoint-and-trailer route
El Paso sits on Interstate 10, one of the main east-west freight corridors in the United States, and Interstate 25 begins just across the state line in Las Cruces, carrying freight north through New Mexico. Border Patrol interior checkpoints on those routes — including the I-25 checkpoint in Las Cruces named in this case — exist precisely because smuggling organisations move people past the border itself in cars and on foot, then load them into commercial trailers for the highway leg north. For the thousands of legitimate Punjabi and other diaspora truckers who run I-10 and I-25 every week, cases of this kind are the reason checkpoint inspections, trailer seals and yard security draw federal attention: a single smuggling load found in a trailer exposes the driver to federal felony charges, whatever a broker or intermediary promised him.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office via CDLLife (case geography)
Alien smuggling is a federal offence under U.S. immigration law covering bringing, transporting or harbouring people who are in the country unlawfully, with higher penalties where the offence is done for financial gain. The three men in this case have been charged, not convicted. The account released so far does not name the migrants, say where they were taken after the stop, or give court dates, and it does not allege that any migrant was injured during the transport.
What happens next
The three defendants will move through the federal court process in the Western District of Texas, where prosecutors will have to prove the smuggling charges — including, for the trailer load, the alleged $16,000 payment agreement that the U.S. Attorney's Office says Montelongo described to officers. If convicted of transporting migrants for financial gain, drivers in such cases face federal prison time and the loss of their commercial driving careers. The U.S. Attorney's Office said no further information has been released, so the next public step is the defendants' initial court appearances and any indictment that follows the charges.