A traffic stop on Interstate 25 north of Las Cruces turned into a sweeping federal smuggling case after Border Patrol agents say they opened the back of a tractor-trailer and found 42 people inside, including three unaccompanied minors, seated unrestrained on the floor in rows and columns with no apparent way out. Federal prosecutors have charged the driver, Miguel Malo Poggio, with transportation of illegal aliens in connection with the stop.
Stop Led by Homeland Security Investigation
According to KTSM 9 News, agents stopped the northbound tractor-trailer as part of an investigation led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations. When agents opened the trailer, they allegedly discovered 42 people who were in the country illegally, among them three unaccompanied minors, according to the same report. KVIA also reported on the arrest, noting that U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped the tractor-trailer driven by Malo Poggio on I-25 in Las Cruces.
Investigators say the people inside had no apparent means of exiting the trailer on their own. Per the KTSM account, at least one individual told investigators, according to the affidavit, that they had crossed the border illegally less than a week earlier before being taken to a stash house, where their phone was confiscated, and then loaded into the trailer and instructed to sit, stay quiet, and remain hidden.
Keys, Cellphones and a Tamper-Evident Seal
Agents allegedly found a black backpack containing numerous cellular devices tucked inside a storage compartment in the truck's cab, the same report states. Malo Poggio allegedly handed an agent a set of keys from his pocket that were said to belong to the cargo trailer, which had been secured with a red tamper-evident seal, per the KTSM report.
The case remains under investigation and is being prosecuted in El Paso, the outlet's reporting notes. Federal law under 8 U.S.C. § 1324 makes it a crime to knowingly or recklessly disregard that a person has entered or remains in the country unlawfully while transporting or attempting to transport that person within the United States in furtherance of that violation.
Part of a Surge in Border-Area Prosecutions
The Las Cruces case lands amid a sharp rise in immigration prosecutions across the region. Federal prosecutors in West Texas filed 256 new immigration and immigration-related criminal cases in the week ending Oct. 30, pushing the district's October total to nearly 1,000 cases, the station's report notes.
Smuggling cases involving large groups packed into trailers have turned deadly elsewhere in Texas. A federal judge recently sentenced Guatemalan national Rigoberto Ramon Miranda-Orozco to 30 years in prison for his role in the deaths of 53 immigrants found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer near Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio in June 2022, according to The Texas Tribune. In that case, 66 people had been loaded into the trailer after smugglers confiscated their cellphones; 48 were found dead at the scene and five more died later at a hospital, the Tribune reported.
No court docket number, bond status or potential sentence for Malo Poggio has been disclosed in the reporting so far, and the fate and condition of the 42 people found in the trailer has not been detailed. The investigation into the Las Cruces stop continues as prosecutors in El Paso pursue the case.
