HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) – Three smuggling attempts were halted over the holiday weekend across the Rio Grande Valley.
In one of the instances, a Guatemalan migrant called the Harlingen Police Department on around 1 p.m. and said that he and others were being held against their will in a home. Seven migrants were found in this home on December 26, and are now in Border Patrol custody. The Honduran caretaker was located and will be prosecuted.
The following day around 3 a.m., four migrants from El Salvador were found hiding between pallets in a Freightliner truck hauling a trailer at the Javier Vega Jr. Border Patrol Checkpoint. The vehicle had been referred to secondary inspection following a K9 alert. There was no way the migrants could have exited the trailer on their own, due to a metal wire that was holding the doors together from the outside.
The earliest of the apprehensions happened on December 24 around 8:00 a.m. Five migrants, including a 12-year-old female Mexican national, boarded a gray SUV half a mile away from a marked Border Patrol vehicle near the Anzalduas Bridge in Mission.
The public is encouraged to report suspicious activity 800-863-9382.
