This is the moment a Texas sheriff tricks migrants into getting arrested after nabbing their driver and using his GPS to track them as they illegally crossed into the US.
In exclusive video obtained by DailyMail.com, Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland – a retired Border Patrol agent – can be heard signaling to migrants they can come out of hiding in desert brush and load into a pick-up to be trafficked.
‘Come on; come on,’ Cleveland can be heard saying in Spanish. ‘Hurry, hurry, get in. Get in. Everyone, get in.’
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‘I’m the smuggler; everything is fine,’ Cleveland reassures the migrants who stare at him as they follow orders.
Of the seven migrants who hop into the waiting truck, one man becomes violent and starts to resist, prompting a US Border Patrol agent to show himself.
The agent appears with a light on his helmet and subdues the man as the sheriff can be heard saying, ‘If you move, I’ll shoot. Do you understand?’
The real smuggler the migrants were expecting was arrested moments before the migrant were busted on Thursday near Sanderson, Texas.
The Mexican citizen was driving the truck on a remote road, Cleveland explained, adding he stopped the driver because his search of his plates showed he wasn’t from the area.
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Drivers come from as far away as California, Alabama and the Midwest to make quick cash by picking up illegal immigrants who have just crossed the border.
The illegal immigrants walk for a day or two until they reach a rendezvous point. From there, the drivers are sent GPS coordinates to the pickup location. The drivers head to the meet up spot and usually honk or signal to the waiting border-crossers to get in the car.
If the driver is successful, they pick up the migrants and ferry them to big cities in Texas or even beyond, Cleveland stated.
In last week’s incident, once the driver was pulled over, Cleveland discovered the man was an illegal immigrant from the state of Jalisco.
The sheriff turned the driver over to Border Patrol agents and received permission from the driver to look through his phone, the sheriff said.
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‘We want to get the smuggler, but we also want to get the migrants. Even though most of them are just coming here to work, we have to enforce our laws.’
Of the Mexicans who were taken into custody Thursday, Cleveland said one woman who was among them pleaded to be let go.
‘She cried and said she just came to the US to work. She said she had a baby back home in Mexico and was just trying to provide for it.’
Most of migrants illegally crossing the southern border of the US near Sanderson are from Mexico and try to evade authorities.
It’s a far cry from the chaotic scenes at the border of asylum-seeking migrants from countries such as Venezuela and Cuba surrendering themselves to border agents in an attempt to be granted political refuge in America.
In the last two years, the remote town where Cleveland serves as the top cop, has seen a nearly 400 per cent increase in human smuggling, he said.
* ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12611909/amp/Moment-Texas-sheriff-TRICKS-migrants-getting-arrested-nabbing-driver-using-GPS-track-crossing-US.html?ito=smartnews