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Border Patrol agents discovered a boat towed behind a U.S. citizen’s truck was concealing eight people who entered the country illegally at a checkpoint on Highway 78 near Yuma Friday night.
A Border Patrol canine alerted to a pickup truck towing a fishing boat passing through the checkpoint near Palo Verde, California at approximately 10:30 p.m., according to a statement from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Officers pulled the truck over to a secondary inspection area, where they found eight people hiding under the boat’s cover.
Their ages ranging from 18 to 40 years old, and they were all Mexican nationals, according to the statement. One of the people had allegedly been deported four times before.
The statement continued that agents arrested the 33-year-old man driving the truck and booked him on suspicion of smuggling charges. They also impounded his vehicle, boat and trailer were all impounded.
The eight people in his boat were all taken to Yuma to be processed.
There have been numerous cases of migrants getting hurt during smuggling attempts like these.
“In this case by transporting people in a fishing boat not designed to safely transport people while being towed. There are no proper restraints, and occupants can be injured or killed during an accident,” the Border Protection and Customs statement concluded.
The number of migrants rescued by U.S. border agents spiked in Arizona’s desert wilderness this year as people continued to attempt the crossing despite the risks during the hottest summer in recorded history.
This year, the remains of 146 people were identified along the Arizona-Mexico border, one of the deadliest corridors in the country for people attempting to enter the country illegally, according to a map maintained by the aid group Humane Borders using data from the Pima County Medical Examiner.
Critics such as the humanitarian aid organization No More Deaths argued that the Border Patrol’s policies are responsible not just for the rescues but also the deaths of migrants at the border. They point to the agency’s “prevention through deterrence” strategy in 1994 for pushing migrants and smugglers to more remote and rugged areas of the border.
Republic reporter Rafael Carranza contributed to this report.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or on Twitter @vv1lder.
Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2020/09/14/us-border-patrol-agents-yuma-illegal-entry/5798390002/
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