EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The case began with the apprehension of four migrants near Topgolf in West El Paso. It quickly evolved into a rescue attempt of up to 30 foreign nationals reportedly held against their will. And somewhere along the line were allegations that smugglers abandoned a body in an unidentified gas station.
The alleged migrant mass smuggling event reported in Sunland Park, New Mexico, last January has entered a new phase. Two men are scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Las Cruces on federal charges of conspiring to harbor and transport unauthorized migrants for profit.
Defendants Saul and Steven Castorena were among five individuals arrested in connection with a migrant stash house operating on Calle Carrosel in Sunland Park. A federal grand jury last week indicted the two on the migrant charges and Saul Castorena on an additional weapons charge.
Court documents show U.S. Border Patrol agents in the early hours of Jan. 18 came across four foreign nationals walking a deserted area near Topgolf off Interstate 10 in West El Paso. The agents determined the men were in the country illegally, but red flags went up during the interviews.
The migrants said they had escaped a house where armed men were keeping them under threats. The migrants “were visually afraid and were hesitant to speak” but agents eventually persuaded them to take them to the house, according to documents filed in U.S. federal district court in Las Cruces.
The migrants remembered a large red “Power” sign — belonging to the El Paso Electric power plant — in Sunland Park. While the agents drove them around the Old Anapra neighborhood of the city, the migrants recognized a black SUV with chrome wheels and a Razor all-terrain recreational vehicle.
The agents noticed several individuals in a home along Calle Carrosel who were acting as “lookouts,” the documents state. As time passed, Border Patrol agents in Sunland Park came across a second group of four migrants who told them they, too, had escaped the stash house.
The Border Patrol took all of the escaped migrants to their El Paso station. Interviews by Homeland Security Investigations agents revealed that a group of 30 migrants had crossed from Juarez, Mexico, to Sunland Park and had been crammed into a single SUV by smugglers.
“One individual was crushed and died of asphyxiation. The driver of the vehicle stated (to the migrants) they would take him to a hospital. However, the driver dumped the body at a gas station,” the federal criminal complaint states.
There was no immediate information on Wednesday regarding the deceased. A search of social media posts by Sunland Park government agencies in mid-January revealed no such find.
One of the migrants told investigators the vehicle stopped at a home and they were then taken in small groups to different locations by armed individuals. He said he and others at the Carrosel location were threatened with harm if they did not pay their captors $5,000. The migrant said the smugglers called his family and told them he would not be allowed to leave until the money was paid, according to court documents.
A second escaped migrant told HSI agents he was threatened with a gun that was pointed at him.
Based on the severity of the situation, HSI agents requested an emergency search warrant from a judge and raided the property in Sunland Park. That led to the arrest of the three suspected smugglers and the eight adults and one child, court records show.
The criminal complaint states Saul Castorena, Steven Castorena, Frank Castorena, Jose Torres Chairez and Jose Barrios Mesa allegedly were caretakers of the stash house “who worked together and monitored the (migrants), gave them instructions, threatened them, and made them sleep” in vehicles and the lawn of the property.
HSI officials allege in court documents that the five suspects “acted as part of a larger organization” that was not identified. They further stated finding a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun and two assault-style rifles on the property, along with 125 rounds of ammunition and body armor.
Sunland Park for the past four years has been a hot bed of migrant smuggling activity. The city’s first responders often are called to assist the U.S. Border Patrol after bodies are found in the desert or migrants injure themselves coming down the border wall or falling on Mount Cristo Rey, a mountain that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.
