EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal grand jury has indicted an El Paso mom for allegedly trying to smuggle two Mexican children over the Paso del Norte Bridge.
Sara Rubie Carbajal faces charges of conspiracy and transporting aliens for financial gain in connection to her Sept. 13 arrest. That’s when Carbajal attempted to drive from Juarez, Mexico, to El Paso in a vehicle carrying three children sleeping in the back seat.
According to court records, Carbajal told a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the Paso del Norte Bridge she was coming back from visiting her husband and that all three children were hers. She said she was taking them to school in El Paso and handed the officer her Texas driver’s license and identity documents for all three children.
A CBP records check triggered an alert, and the officer sent the vehicle and its occupants to a secondary inspection, court records show.
A second CBP officer asked Carbajal who the children belonged to and told her to “think very carefully before answering.” The woman paused, then allegedly told CBP that the female child in the car was her daughter and a United States citizen, but that she was paid $1,200 by a man in Mexico to smuggle the other two male children into the United States, records show.
CBP officers interviewed the children and one of the males told them he was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
An El Paso federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted Carbajal on the two charges. The smuggler or the smuggling network that allegedly hired the Texas woman was not identified in court records.