On Sunday, the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the Weslaco Border Patrol Station after receiving the 911 call. Agents discovered nine people at the stash house, including two “caretakers” who were citizens of Mexico. According to the illegal aliens at the stash house, one of the “caretakers” had threatened the group with a knife.
CBP stated that the rest of the illegal aliens being held at the stash house were from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.
In addition, a 20-year-old Mexican man was taken into custody after border police say he crashed a white Mitsubishi Galant near Brownsville. He is suspected of fleeing in a getaway car after a group of people made a run for it on Friday evening.
Agents also described the rescue of a 29-year-old Guatemalan illegal alien on Saturday after he activated a border patrol rescue beacon in the “vast ranchlands of Kenedy County.”
It has been a busy couple of weeks for seizures of narcotics in the Hidalgo area. Border agents reported more than $1.5 million in drug seizures at the Hidalgo International Bridge on January 4 and January 7.
In the January 4 incident, border police say an 18-year-old American man who was living in the Mexican city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, attempted to cross the border with 38 pounds of cocaine and 448 grams of fentanyl.
Three days later, a 42-year-old American man attempted to smuggle 90 pounds of methamphetamine in a 2010 Chevrolet Silverado, per CBP.
Carlos Rodriguez, port director of the Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry, credited the diligence of border guards.
“These significant seizures of hard narcotics not only illustrate the firm commitment of our frontline CBP officers to carry out CBP’s border security mission but show how their important work helps to protect our communities from illegal narcotics,” Rodriguez said.
CBP has not yet published its monthly operational update, which will contain the enforcement statistics for December, including narcotics seizures and apprehensions of illegal aliens.
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Hayden Sparks
Hayden Sparks is a senior reporter for The Texan and a lifelong resident of the Lone Star State. He has coached competitive speech and debate and has been involved in politics since a young age. One of Hayden's favorite quotes is by Sam Houston: "Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."
