More than 100 migrants found in series of stash houses in NE, East and Central El Paso
U.S. Border Patrol agents in one day found 103 undocumented migrants at a series of human smuggling stash houses across El Paso, officials said this week.
The uptick in stash-house discoveries is taking place along with human smuggling vehicle interdictions in El Paso and Southern New Mexico.
Since fiscal year 2022 began last fall, Border Patrol agents have located more than 175 stash houses containing more than 1,900 migrants in the El Paso Sector, which covers far West Texas and all of New Mexico, the agency stated.
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The stash houses were found on July 14 as part of separate cases involving the Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies.
Northeast stash apartments
9:50 a.m.: A multi-agency operation found 59 migrants, including three accompanied children, harbored in several small apartment complexes off Diana Drive in Northeast El Paso, the Border Patrol said.
The stash sites were located with information from previous smuggling attempts in an operation by Border Patrol anti-smuggling units, the Texas Department of Public Safety and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.
Three Mexican citizens were arrested on smuggling charges. The migrants were from Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Mexico and Honduras.
East Side stash motel rooms
11:40 a.m.: Border agents with the Ysleta Station Anti-Smuggling Unit found 31 smuggled migrants inside four rooms at a motel near Lomaland Drive on the East Side. The migrants were from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras and Colombia and included a 5-year-old accompanied child, officials said.
Central stash house
5:30 p.m.: El Paso County sheriff’s investigators serving a narcotics warrant found no drugs but discovered 13 smuggled Mexican migrants at a house near Alabama Street in Central El Paso, officials said. The Sheriff's Office notified Border Patrol, which took custody of the migrants.
In all the cases, the detained migrants were medically cleared and evaluated and those eligible under the Title 42 pandemic law were returned to Mexico while others were taken to the Border Patrol's Central Processing Center to be processed, the agency said.
Stash house sites aren't always houses. They can be apartments, motel rooms, storage sheds and other structures used by smugglers as a temporary holding location for undocumented migrants until migrants can be transported to other cities, border law enforcement officials have said.
Suspicious smuggling activity can be reported to the U.S. Border Patrol at 1-800-635-2509.
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This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: More than 100 migrants found in series of El Paso stash houses
