EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – An Arizona man is in federal custody after failing to convince U.S. Border Patrol agents he picked up four unauthorized migrants with the intent of delivering them to authorities.
Border agents arrested Jose Angel Parker, 48, last Friday shortly after camera operators alerted them to a white Ford Econoline van activating a hidden sensor in an area known for migrant smuggling. Court documents allege operators watched several people emerge from the brush half a mile north of the border wall near Hereford, Arizona, and at least some of them enter the van.
Agents observed the vehicle head north on State Route 92 and set off to intercept it. The driver stopped the van when prompted but he became confrontational when they started to talk to him, a federal complaint alleges.
Parker told the agents he was taking the occupants to the Border Patrol station. He said he came to the border to buy old cars he could rebuild, but his GPS stopped working as he drove down a road. When he came upon people on the side of the road, he told them to get in with the intent of taking them back to Mexico, a Border Patrol station or checkpoint, he told the agents.
Court documents say Parker told the agents he knew the passengers were unauthorized non-citizens and that he “realized he was in trouble” when the Border Patrol pulled him over.
Later, investigators interviewed the four unauthorized Mexican migrants in the van and three volunteered they were brought across the border by a smuggling organization that provided two guides that took them to the road where they would be picked up. The “guides” or smugglers at one point told them their transportation had arrived and pointed them to the van before running back to Mexico.
Court records show Juan Bernardo Felipe Segundo, who is being held by federal authorities as a material witness in the case, told investigators a white van came along the road where the migrants were and honked for them to get in.
At least one of the migrants was removed from the U.S. on a previous occasion, court records show.
Parker made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on Monday on charges of transporting illegal aliens for financial gain. He is scheduled to appear for the video deposition of material witnesses on March 25.