Allegations Grow Against Border Patrol Agent

By ABC-7 I-Team Investigator Martin Bartlett

EL PASO, Texas – A source close to the invesitgation of the so called “Jurado Human Smuggling Organization” told ABC-7 the group may have also provided fake documents to some of the illegal immigrants they were smuggling.

El Paso Border Patrol Agent Jesus Miguel Huizar, 28, was arrested and charged Tuesday, along with two Mexican nationals.

Huizar’s arrest is at least the third such arrest in the last year.

Customs Inspector Margarita Crispin pleaded guilty to allowing drug loads to pass through her lanes at the Paso del Norte port of entry Downtown. She was arrested last summer.

In January of this year, former Border Patrol Agent-turned-fugitive Arturo Arzate, Jr., was arrested on charges that he waived drug loads through his inspection station onUS 62-180 near Hueco Tanks.

“Unfortunately, this type of case comes up from time to time and it’s dealt with accordingly, and they will continue to be dealt with accordingly,” said Ramiro Cordero, a Border Patrol spokesman.

But, now, investigators said Huizar was involved in the human smuggling ring that brought immigrants illegally across the border, harbored them in El Paso, and let them pass through border patrol checkpoints in southern New Mexico.

US Attorney Johnny Sutton said this is just as much about public corruption as allegations of misconduct at the courthouse.

“A prosecutor cannot turn a blind eye to corruption at any level of public service when he finds it,” he said in a statement released only to ABC-7. “Law enforcement officers as well as elected officials are required to obey the law just like the rest of us.”