EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A U.S. citizen, a Cuban asylum-seeker and a Mexican national are facing multiple federal charges in connection with a failed migrant smuggling event near the Texas-New Mexico state line. A federal grand jury in El Paso on Wednesday indicted the three on charges of conspiracy and transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.
The case against Alberto Gonzalez Pena and Ernesto Arzaga started to brew when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted a black Chevrolet SUV and a gray Acura driving at night into a Santa Teresa, New Mexico, industrial park just a few miles north of the border wall on Dec. 4.
The agents observed the two vehicles driving slowly and apparently in tandem toward the desert. The vehicles reemerged a short time late with the Acura appearing to be “weighted down.” Court records show the Chevy and the Acura parted ways at the intersection of McNutt and Country Club roads near the Texas state line.
A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper contacted by the Border Patrol stopped the Acura on the Texas side and asked for the occupants’ citizenship. The driver identified himself as Gonzalez and stated he was a citizen of Cuba with valid asylum status. Court records show the trooper looked inside the vehicle and found two individuals crouching in the back seat, who were later determined to be unauthorized migrants from Mexico.
Records also show Gonzalez was previously arrested on Feb. 1, 2021, in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, in connection with the apprehension of six unauthorized migrants near a highway checkpoint north of Las Cruces. A man named Michael Chenoweth allegedly was driving the migrants, while Gonzalez was allegedly acting as a lookout in another vehicle. Records show Gonzalez’s prosecution was paused under an order for tolling a speedy trial, as cases overwhelmed the courts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As for the other vehicle in the more recent Santa Teresa incident, border agents followed it onto Interstate 10 in El Paso, and saw it exit and proceed to Clark Drive in East-Central El Paso. The Border Patrol again requested the assistance of Texas DPS, which stopped the vehicle and questioned its driver, an American citizen named Ernesto Arzaga, court records show.
A total of six undocumented migrants were inside the Chevrolet SUV; they were detained along with Arzaga. Later, Arzaga allegedly gave federal investigators permission to search his cellphone and learned an individual only known by the nickname of “Mijo” would be calling to provide a drop-off location for the migrants.
Court records show an individual later identified as Cristian Mares Sandoval called the number and told the person who answered to meet at a motel on Lomaland Drive. Border Patrol agents arrived at the motel to meet with the driver of a silver Jeep, who turned out to be Mares — an undocumented migrant from Mexico with a past criminal history, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Mares allegedly told investigators he was being paid $500 by unidentified parties to rent a room at the hotel for the migrants and provide food for them. He allegedly told investigators his role was to move unauthorized non-citizens to stash houses.
Records in U.S. Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas show Arzaga was scheduled to attend a probation revocation hearing this month in connection with a separate 2020 migrant smuggling event.
