A Texas woman and others admitted to prosecutors on Friday to operating a migrant child smuggling operation, which included at times using gummies to make children sleep when passing border checkpoints.
Vanessa Valadez, a 23-year-old Texas woman, pleaded guilty to smuggling migrant children across the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a press release by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). From August to September 2023, Valadez and other members of the operation brought young minors — all under the age of five — from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, into the U.S. illegally.
When members of the smuggling operation attempted to transport another young girl on Sept. 21, 2023, they were intercepted by law enforcement during a routine border inspection near Laredo at the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge, according to HSI. The conspirators allegedly used an unlawfully obtained birth certificate to trick authorities into believing the minor was a family member, and they allegedly sedated the minor with melatonin gummies to keep her asleep during the border checkpoint process.
In one successfully executed example, members of the smuggling ring on the night of Sept. 29, 2023, took a young girl from a stash house run by the operation and delivered her across the border to Valadez in downtown Laredo, according to HSI. That young girl was taken by co-conspirators and delivered to unknown individuals.
“The smuggling ring had attempted to similarly transport at least four girls into the United States — three of whom remain unidentified, and their whereabouts are unknown,” the HSI press release said. “Members of the smuggling ring obtained birth certificates of U.S. citizen children to pose as a family unit at ports of entry to the United States.”
The investigation by law enforcement authorities uncovered that one of the members of the smuggling operation texted an image of a sleeping child with the caption, translated into English, “We knocked her out with some gummies.”
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General report released last month revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel were unable to keep track of all unaccompanied alien children who crossed into the U.S. and were released from government custody since fiscal year 2019, adding that the ICE does not know the whereabouts of at least 32,000 of these minors.
That DHS report also highlighted the risks unaccompanied migrant children have of being trafficked, put into forced labor or exploited in other ways, unlike adult migrants who unlawfully enter the country.
“The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have neither accepted responsibility nor taken accountability for failing to close our southern border,” Texas GOP Rep. Lance Gooden wrote in a letter last week to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, demanding answers about the safety of migrant children in the country. “This has encouraged a record number of criminal aliens to use migrant children as a ‘free pass’ to cross our border.”
“The Biden Administration and its responsible departments must also provide more transparency into their policies and ensure proper enforcement of procedures surrounding [unaccompanied alien children],” Gooden continued.
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