CA Coyotes Caught w Migrants, Drugs and Arsenal

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Debate

California , United States.- Two alleged " polleros ", eight undocumented persons and an arsenal that includes a missile launcher were secured by elements of the Border Patrol in a house located in El Centro, in Imperial County, California. The address is located approximately 18 kilometers north of the border.




It was during a search by the US border authorities that they managed to locate the alleged "polleros" or coyotes, ie human smugglers , who are paid to help migrants cross into the US illegally. The two men are 50 and 28 years old, both of whom are of United States nationality.

There they located and secured five rifles, four short firearms and one missile launcher ; along with 3.75 grams of methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, body armor and just over $5,300 dollars in cash.

It transpired that the 28-year-old suspect is linked by US authorities as a member of a gang in Calexico, California .  The undocumented eight people will remain detained in order to testify as witnesses in the trial of the probable "polleros".





Meanwhile in Arizona:
  

The human smugglers in recent weeks have been abandoning a large group of Guatemalan and other migrant Central American hard Sonoran Desert , surrounded by cactus, near the Mexico border, alarmed officials of the Border Patrol who say this trend is putting hundreds of children at risk. 

Altogether, more than 1,400 migrants have been left by smugglers in the burning desert, or in one case, in the midst of a severe storm, in remote areas of the border since August 20. One group was of no less than 275 people.

"We've seen large groups in the past, but never on this scale," said Tucson-based Border Patrol agent Daniel Hernandez. "It's definitely a serious concern because your safety is being compromised."

Hernandez said the latest case involved 61 people rescued by agents last week from rising floods caused by unusually heavy rains in an isolated area and "could have been a much worse situation in case the rain continued."

Unlike Texas, where people surrender to the banks of the Rio Grande, smugglers in Arizona have been throwing groups of migrant families on a remote dirt road that runs along the southern limit of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to the west of the Lukeville border crossing with Mexico. 

                   Summer temperatures there can rise close to 120 degrees (49 degrees Celsius).

Those migrants are sometimes given food and water, but not always, and often require medical care for back and ankle injuries or lacerations.   Traffickers "do not take into account the safety and well-being of these families," Tucson sector chief Rodolfo Karisch said last week.

Two larger groups of migrants from Guatemala and Honduras were also found abandoned last week near Yuma. Border Patrol officials said 108 people were found just before midnight on October 2, half a mile west of the San Luis Port of Entry and five hours later, agents detained 56 Central Americans one mile east of the border crossing.

An agent of the US Border Patrol patrol the international border separating Sonoyta, Mexico, and Lukeville, Arizona.

While Mexican men traveling with no relatives have always made up the bulk of migrants , Guatemalans and other Central Americans who travel in families or as unaccompanied minors are now the norm.

The US Immigration and Control Service in Arizona, he began releasing hundreds of people on Sunday to wait for court appointments, saying he did not have the ability to maintain an "incredibly high volume" of migrant families who showed up at the border.

Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona asked the Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and other officials Wednesday to investigate ways to deal with a wave of migrants that he said overwhelmed Yuma and other parts of southern Arizona. He said at a Senate hearing that he was concerned that people were threatened "by a huge number of illegal participants ... some of whom may not be making asylum claims."

Nielsen said he did not know how many of the migrants in southern Arizona had filed asylum applications, but would study it.

Under federal law and international treaties, people can obtain asylum in the US.  If they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their countries, but the officials of the Trump administration accuse that the system is full of frauds and unfounded claims and have called for stricter standards.

Approximately eight out of 10 asylum seekers pass an initial evaluation and are then held in an immigration detention center or released on bail in the US. While their cases go through the immigration courts. Many claims are finally denied.

Hernandez said the traffickers instructed the migrants to seek asylum or some other type of protection status from the US. UU., But the interviews have indicated that they arrived in the USA.  To improve their economic situation and they went to places like Charleston, South Carolina; Oakland, California and Homestead, Florida.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum of the Washington defense group, said the government does not have the resources to deal with the wave of migrants and "should use part of that money to address the root causes of poverty and violence in Guatemala and to process asylum cases fairly. "

Central Americans often cite violence in their countries of origin when they apply for asylum applications. The newly arrested immigrants came from Honduras and El Salvador, which like Guatemala harbor deadly gangs such as the MS-13.

From October 1, 2017 to August 31, almost twice as many Guatemalans and more than twice as many Salvadorans were arrested compared to the same 11-month period of the previous year. The most recent statistics from the Customs and Border Protection agency show that arrests of people traveling in families and as unaccompanied minors also increased.

Of the more than 90,000 migrants who travel in families detained during the 11-month period, about half were from Guatemala. The rest were from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.