Mexicans suspected of illegally entering U.S. arrested at airport

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Posted 9:36AM on Thursday, March 31, 2005

MORRISVILLE, N.C. - Eleven men suspected of illegally entering the United States from Mexico were arrested this week while aboard a Southwest Airlines flight at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The men had boarded their flight Tuesday by showing federal agents one form of identification a Mexican voter registration card that contained a name, age and photo, said Thomas O'Connell, resident agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Raleigh. Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said it was the first incident she knew of in which immigration agents boarded a Southwest flight to check passenger identification. The events leading to the men's arrest began when an air marshal on a flight from Las Vegas to Chicago overheard the men discussing how they were smuggled into the United States, O'Connell said. McInnis would not give the flight number, saying she could not release passenger information. When the flight landed in Chicago, the air marshal departed from the plane and called a customs agent in Atlanta who then notified O'Connell's office. The men boarded a second flight, 2340, in Chicago and arrived in Raleigh at 6:40 p.m. Tuesday, according to officials. The flight's 136 passengers were held on the plane for about 15 minutes while immigration, customs and border agents, along with the RDU police arrived on the scene. Federal agents boarded the flight and began checking the identification of passengers. Officers detained 11 men who were then interviewed and taken to the Johnston County jail. After spending another day in the Johnston County jail, the men will go to Charlotte and later to Atlanta for a deportation hearing, O'Connell said. The men had each paid a smuggler $1,000 to cross the border near Douglas, Ariz., on or about March 22, O'Connell said. After crossing the border, a vehicle took the men to Las Vegas, where they stayed at a ``stash house'' for several days before boarding a Southwest flight headed for Raleigh. It was not clear how the airline tickets were purchased or how the group got past federal security agents without a passport and using a foreign voter registration card, O'Connell said. The men arrested for entering the U.S. without inspection, were listed as: Basilio Castro-Tellez, Roman Ventura-Mendoza, Isidoro Del Agua-Soyoquila, Santiago Lazcano-Guzman, Joaquin Gonzalez-Sampayo, Roberto Garrido-Ortega, Efren Gonzalez-Romero, Bernardo Alejandro Castro-Guillen, Sergio Garcia-Aparicio, Daniel Aparicio-Telles and Alfonso Hernandez-Castillo, according to the Raleigh Immigration Customs Enforcement office. The men ranged in age from about 19 to 41, according to federal officials. The men told immigration agents they had come to North Carolina for employment.