14ymedio, Havana, 15 August 2024 — A Cuban man, Enrique Nerey Valdivia, was found guilty on Monday for the crime of “migrant trafficking” in the state of Texas. Federal prosecutor Alamdar Hamdani dismissed the evidence presented by the defendant’s defense lawyer, considering it “not very credible.” Judge David S. Morales, who presided over the trial, set sentencing for November 6.
Nerey Valdivia, 50, faces a sentence of up to five years in federal prison, in addition to a possible fine of up to $250,000, according to a statement from the Texas Southern District Attorney’s Office. The Cuban was allowed to remain free on bail pending sentencing.
The Cuban, a resident of Odessa, Texas, was arrested at the Border Patrol checkpoint near Falfurrias, after being discovered transporting five undocumented migrants in the back compartment of the truck.
During Monday’s hearing held in a court in Corpus Christi, the defense lawyer tried to convince the jury that Nerey Valdivia “had no knowledge of the people who were in the cabin of his truck.”
Nerey Valdivia “had no knowledge of the people who were in the cabin of his truck”
Upon arriving at the inspection point, agents of the U.S. Border Patrol inspected the truck when they noticed strange movements inside the cabin. Upon entering, they found five people covered with blankets in the bunk area.
This is not the first time that coyotes of Cuban nationality have been captured. Last March, two Cubans living in the United States were accused of migrant smuggling by the Border Patrol after being captured in the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, while transporting 23 undocumented migrants inside a truck. According to Jason Owens, head of the police force of the small community near Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, after being prosecuted, they could “be expelled from the United States.”
In August of last year, Nahara Candelaria Milán, 26, was brought to justice for smuggling migrants. A traffic violation in Eagle Pass (Texas) and his nervousness when documents were requested betrayed the Cuban, who was inspected by the authorities. In his van he carried seven undocumented migrants.
In the same month, the Cuban Julio César Aspiazu Gómez was prosecuted for trying to take five undocumented migrants to Texas, who were later deported to Mexico.
Cubans Rainel Lázaro Silies and Lima Gálvez González were also intercepted in April 2023 for the crime of migrant smuggling in Kinney County, Texas, United States. The couple’s arrest took place in the town of Brackettville, when five undocumented people were transported in a vehicle with a license plate from the state of Kentucky.
According to the Kinney County office, the couple came from Louisville, a “Cuban settlement active since the 1990s,” which has doubled its population in the last decade.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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