Texas teen misses graduation after smuggler arrested in El Paso

Lina Portman4 weeks ago

0 4 minutes read

Instead of attending his high school graduation ceremony, an El Paso-area teenager was in jail after being arrested during a high-speed chase for migrant smuggling on the West Side, court officials said.

The Operation Lone Star case is among the ongoing risks young people face when involved in vehicle pursuits for border migrant smuggling on the streets of El Paso.

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Jabin Encinas, 17, is accused of leading Texas state troopers on an 80 mph chase through residential streets in a Chevrolet Silverado carrying undocumented migrants, said Assistant District Attorney John Briggs during a bond hearing via teleconference Sunday June. 2.

Encinas, of Socorro, was booked into the El Paso County Jail on Friday, May 31, on charges of trafficking persons with a firearm, unlawful carrying of a weapon and evading arrest in a vehicle. He was released on bail on Tuesday.

Under Texas law, people 17 and older are considered adults in the criminal justice system.

Suspected young smuggler fails high school diploma

Encinas has no criminal record, had completed high school and was supposed to have attended his graduation ceremony last Saturday, defense attorney Richard “Rick” Huffman said during the bond hearing . The name of the school has not been released.

Huffman added that Encinas, who lives with his mother and grandmother, plans to study mechanical engineering and will soon be enrolled at the University of Texas at El Paso.

“I talked to his mother. His mother was really surprised by this. It's very out of character for him, Judge,” Huffman told Magistrate Judge Ruben Nuñez during the hearing while seeking to reduce the amount of the deposit.

Pursuit of migrant smuggler west of El Paso

The incident began in the border smuggling hot zone near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, just west of El Paso.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers monitoring U.S. Border Patrol radio transmissions learned that a group of migrants had climbed the border wall in New Mexico and were heading toward a known smugglers' pickup point, a Briggs said during the hearing.

The migrants got into a Chevrolet Silverado, which a police officer found on Artcraft Road after crossing the state border into Texas, the prosecutor said. The officer attempted to stop the truck because a brake light was out and the registration had expired in 2022.

The pursuit began when the driver of the Silverado refused to stop and drove up Artcraft Road, crossed Interstate 10, past a Walmart store and into a neighborhood, Briggs said.

In the neighborhood, the truck stopped momentarily as three men and a woman got out and fled before the driver continued, driving 80 mph down residential streets and running red lights, nearly causing several crashes before to finally stop, said the prosecutor.

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Officers found a loaded .40-caliber Glock 23 handgun in the center console of the truck — which made the human trafficking charge more serious because it involved a gun, Briggs said, the prosecutor.

One of the people arrested after fleeing the truck was an undocumented Mexican citizen, who was allegedly a “guide” to other migrants who led them on foot across the border, prosecutors said.

“Put a lot of people in danger”

Encinas, accused of being the driver, was arrested for trafficking persons with a firearm, illegally carrying a weapon and fleeing in a vehicle. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail downtown.

Prosecutions:PIT maneuver used by state troopers leads to deadly wreck in Upper El Paso Valley

The obligations were set at:

$50,000 for the smuggling case
$40,000 for evading arrest in a vehicle
$10,000 for illegally carrying a weapon

Huffman, the public defender, argued that the young man had no criminal record and that the bonds were too high for his mother to pay. Nuñez, the judge, refused to reduce the bail amount.

“Mr. Encinas, I'm not going to reduce your bail,” Nuñez told him. “What you did put a lot of people in danger – not just you, the people in the vehicle, the law enforcement officers who were pursuing you, but more importantly, the citizens of this community .”

Jail records show Encinas was released on bond Tuesday.

Smuggling groups hire drivers in El Paso

Last week's chase is part of a continuing trend of vehicle pursuits by Texas DPS against migrant smugglers at the El Paso border.

Migrant smuggling – with its crimes of smuggling, kidnapping and extortion – is now as lucrative as drugs for Mexican border cartels, Chihuahua state law enforcement officials said .

More:El Paso high school student arrested in smuggling case after migrant falls from overpass

At the lower levels of the smuggling organizations are the “load drivers” on the U.S. side who are hired to pick up and transport migrants after they cross the border illegally.

Typically, drivers take the “load” of migrants to a meeting place, where someone else then transports them to a hiding place, where they stay before their journey continues to other U.S. cities . Drivers were ordered not to stop for police.

Operation Lone Star made at least 33 human trafficking arrests in the El Paso area from April 19 to May 16, according to a Texas DPS West Texas Region article on X. Those arrested were men aged 18 to 65.

Trafficking of cross-border migrants: payments and pitfalls

A quick look at migrant smuggling cases in the El Paso Times in recent years shows that drivers were to be paid between $50 and $1,000 per person — most payments appeared to be between $200 and $350 per migrant.

Teenagers and young people are recruited by smugglers with risky promises of easy money on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and other social media, said Texas DPS spokesperson Sgt. Eliot Torres said in an email.

Some of these smuggler runs have ended in fatal crashes, and in at least one case a teenage driver faces a murder charge to go to trial next year after a Mexican migrant died in a crash while that he was fleeing a police officer on North Mesa Street last year.

Texas DPS gives presentations in schools on “the dangers of human trafficking and the pitfalls our youth face due to recruitment into human trafficking,” Torres said.

Lina Portman

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