EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Two Chinese nationals with expired U.S. visas have been charged with smuggling several migrants, also from China, near the Arizona-Mexico border.
Border agents on Friday stopped a silver Toyota Camry 5 miles north of Lukeville, Arizona, after mobile surveillance cameras recorded four individuals coming out of the brush and getting into the vehicle. Lukeville last year became the epicenter of illegal migration from African countries; border agents even set up tents next to a national park to process hundreds of migrants crossing from Mexico each day.
Agents observed the front-seat passenger of the Camry get out of the car and make a phone call before the vehicle proceeded north on State Route 85 towards Interstate 8 West.
According to court records, driver Yecheng Wang told the U.S. Border Patrol he is a California resident who “was sightseeing” in the area prior to resuming his travels to New Mexico. Wang told border agents he saw four individuals on the side of the road and decided to give them a ride out of compassion.
The agents checked the immigration status of the four men in the back seat and determined they were all citizens of China illegally present in the United States.
Records show the six people in the Camry were taken to a Border Patrol station to be interviewed by border agents and special agents with Homeland Security Investigations.
The investigation showed Wang and his passenger Anhao Gu had been admitted to the United States from China on temporary visas which had expired.
Interviews with the four of the migrants revealed they left China earlier this year for countries in Africa and Latin America. They all converged in Mexico City after communicating with smugglers through the WeChat messaging app and paying or pledging to pay between $7,000 and $15,000 to be smuggled into the United States, court records show.
One already in Mexico said he paid only $3,000 to a “coordinator” at the Mexicali Hotel in Mexico City to join the group headed to the Arizona border. Records show that the migrants’ final destinations were Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Chinese migrants said they weren’t allowed to rest or stay long on the Mexican side of the border (Sonoyta, Mexico) and that men brandishing guns told them to jump over the border wall and walk north, where the Camry picked them up.
According to a federal complaint affidavit filed by a special agent with HSI, Wang later stated that Gu told him to drive from California to Arizona to “pick somebody up” and that Gu made a call to an unknown party once they arrived.
Gu eventually told investigators that an unidentified party in California offered him and Wang $2,000 each to pick up individuals in Arizona, according to the affidavit.
Detention and preliminary hearings have been set for Sept. 13 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Ambri in Tucson, Arizona.
