Illegal-alien smugglers are using a new counter-intelligence tool to help sneak illegals across the border.
Drones, the Customs and Border Protection reports, are now a weapon to help illegals enter the United States.
If that weren’t enough, on Tuesday, border agents collared 1,800 illegals, and apprehensions in the El Paso sector of the border, CBP reported, have increased by six times from last year.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged an “Illinois man” with operating a major illegal-alien smuggling operation.
Drone War
A CBP agent discovered the high-tech aerial surveillance on Tuesday.
The agent was watching the border with an infrared camera when he “observed a small airborne object” heading north into the United States. It traveled 100 yards into the country, CPB reported, then returned to Mexico.
The agent saw the drone cross into the United States three times. After it crossed back to Mexico the third time, 10 illegals crossed the border in the same area where the drone flew. CBP caught the 10.
“This is the first known time in recent history that a drone has been utilized as a ‘look-out’ in order to aid in illegal entries in the El Paso Sector,” CBP said.
Beyond the drone encounter on Tuesday, border agents again contended with large groups of aliens crossing the border, this time about 1 a.m.
Agents collared a group at the Antelope Wells Port of Entry in New Mexico, 167 miles west of El Paso, at 12:45 a.m. Agents apprehended second group of 360 near Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, about seven miles northwest of El Paso, and yet third group of more than 130, again at Antelope Wells, at the end of the day.
Total catch for Tuesday? More than 1,800.
Among the apprehension Tuesday were two gangbangers, undoubtedly entering the United States to do the jobs Americans won’t do.
The first was a 46-year-old Mexican whose rap sheet includes two felony convictions for illegally re-entering the country, another conviction for burglary, and arrests for burglary and cocaine possession.
Gangbanger No.2 was Salvadoran.
Another group of “migrants” brought an even more special guest: a Salvadoran who molested a child.
CBP reported that its “El Paso Sector continues to deal with an unprecedented number of apprehensions.” At the end of March, six months into the fiscal year, border agents had apprehended 71,000 illegals.
Through the same half-year in 2018, they apprehended “only” 11,000.
The groups nailed in New Mexico weren’t CBP’s only such apprehensions this week.
CBP nailed a group of 360 the same day at Lukeville, Arizona, as The New American reported, after buses dropped them close to the border.
Busing illegals to the border provides smugglers a new way to make a pile of cash from “migrants” desperate to enter the country, knowing authorities in the United States will release them.
Smugglers actually advertise in Central American newspaper for customers.
14 Felonies
As bad as things are at the border, they aren’t so good up north, either. Federal prosecutors in Rockford, Illinois, have indicted 49-year-old Luis Alfredo Delacruz, “from Dekalb,” for smuggling and harboring illegals.
Again, whether Delacruz is actually “from” Dekalb, meaning born there, prosecutors don’t say.
That regardless, unless he pleads guilty, he will stand trial on two counts of smuggling aliens “at a place other than a designated port of entry for commercial advantage or private financial gain,” two counts of smuggling illegals outside ports of entry, another two counts of transporting illegals “within the U.S. for commercial advantage or private financial gain,” and “eight counts of harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage or private financial gain.”
Delacruz, the indictment alleges, smuggled in two illegals in November 2015 and April 2016. On June 1, the indictment alleges, he harbored eight illegals “in buildings or other places … for commercial advantage and his own financial gain.
Each count for smuggling between ports of entry for financial gain carries a sentence of between three and 10 years. Each count of smuggling between ports of entry carries a five-year maximum sentence. He faces a possible 10 years for each count of harboring and transporting inside the country for private gain.
As well, each count carries a fine of up to $250,000 and three years of supervised release.
The “Illinois man” will be arraigned in federal court on April 23.