An illegal immigrant driving on a fake license was busted trying to smuggle 26 other migrants into the US in the back of his tractor-trailer, border patrol officials said.
A border patrol dog first sniffed out the immigrants hiding in the back of the vehicle coming from Mexico through the El Sentro Sector border in southern California last Wednesday, according to a release.
The 26 — including two juveniles — were found locked inside the trailer with no safety restraints in what chief patrol agent Gloria Chavez called “potentially life-threatening” conditions.
The unidentified 32-year-old driver was then found out to be a Mexican national who was in the US illegally and using a fake California driver’s license.
He was arrested along with the 26 people in his trailer, agents said.
“This smuggling organization had no regard for the safety of the people they were smuggling,” Chavez said.
The passengers were between 16 and 56 years old, Border Patrol agent Carlos Pitones told the Los Angeles Times.
“The driver will face criminal proceedings, and the smuggled immigrants will be processed in a case-by-case basis,” Pitones told the paper.
*story by The New York Post