Raft-carrying smugglers help migrants across ‘deadly’ canal

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A raft, a helicopter hunt, a standoff outside a residence and a hole in the ceiling. That’s the gist of a migrant smuggling conspiracy that gained steam when a Mexican national who’s been in the country illegally for 30 years answered an online job posting.

According to court documents, U.S. Border Patrol agents guarding the All-American Canal near Calexico, California, on Tuesday evening watched several individuals cross the international boundary fence. A group of six men lay low trying to conceal themselves from the Border Patrol vehicle, so the agent notified an operator and drove a prudent distance away.

The individuals came over the boundary as expected, with two carrying a raft so the group could negotiate the canal’s waters. In 2022, a total of 21 people drowned in the canal, with 15 being citizens of Mexico, a Mexican consul told local news media last year.

Once across, two suspected smugglers went back to the canal, the boundary and returned to Mexico. The remaining four individuals kept walking north into a neighborhood until they found a street called Keefer Road and sat down to wait, court records show.

It was then that Telesforo Candido Bravo Vargas allegedly drove up the street in a white Toyota Camry with California license plates and began flashing the headlights. Bravo would later admit that he crossed into the U.S. illegally 30 years ago and stayed. While looking for work recently, Bravo found a lead in a bilingual online job board and called a telephone number.

Court records show Bravo was routed to a second telephone number and then a third. A man named “Javier” finally told him the job paid $1,800 and consisted of picking up undocumented migrants at the U.S. border and driving them to a stash house.

As Bravo allegedly picked up the migrants and drove to Imperial, California, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopter tracked the Toyota and kept members of the Border Patrol’s Anti-Smuggling Unit (ASU) in the loop.

When the four men got out of the Toyota and into a residence, ASU agents moved in. Court records show they knocked on the door and identified themselves, but that the female at the threshold screamed at them to leave the property. The agents explained to her that four undocumented migrants had entered the home, but the woman yelled “go find illegal aliens somewhere else,” records show.

The Border Patrol surrounded the home while waiting to secure a search warrant, and ASU agents told the woman they could hear noises in the attic of the home. The female kept yelling until a male inside the home told her to stop talking. Court records show the occupants agreed to come out at 11:20 p.m. – five hours after the migrants came across the border.

Agents arrested Brian Ronald Towery and Jamee D. Shorter on charges of harboring illegal aliens, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

The agents went into the home and found a hole in the ceiling of one of the bedrooms. They could hear noises and ordered the suspected migrants to come down. Three did, and an agent had to go in and persuade the fourth one to give up. Court records show the men were all Mexican nationals who had paid or pledged to pay between $7,000 and $10,000 to be smuggled into the country and delivered to cities in the interior of the United States where they expected to find jobs.

The migrants are being held as material witnesses in the smuggling case and face deportation once the government states its case.

As for Bravo, records show Border Patrol agents stopped his Toyota in Calexico and took him into custody. He faces felony charges of transportation of illegal aliens and possible deportation proceedings after time served.