Texas Trucker Pleads Guilty to Smuggling 73 Migrants
LUISANA MORENO2 Jun 202222
A trucker pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle 73 migrants through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint 80 miles north of the Texas border.
This week, 24-year-old Leonardo Davila Jr. went before U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton in Corpus Christi, where he pleaded guilty to a human smuggling charge. Davila is expected to be sentenced on August 24, where he could receive a prison sentence of up to five years.
According to the criminal complaint, in early February 2022, Davila tried to drive a tractor-trailer from Edinburg to Houston, but was arrested at a checkpoint in Falfurrias. A police dog alerted to people hiding in the trailer. Authorities found 73 migrants hiding in the cargo trailer.
Agents took three of the migrants as material witnesses. They claimed to have crossed into Texas through the Rio Grande and spent roughly two weeks at a stash house. Unnamed human smugglers took the migrants from various houses to a tire shop, where Davila was waiting with the trailer. Once the migrants were inside, he told them to keep quiet and to sit in a certain part of the hold to avoid being caught by a police dog or scanning device.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/06/02/texas-trucker-pleads-guilty-to-smuggling-73-migrants/
