From Friday to Monday last weekend, authorities responded to two calls for help from migrants being held in stash houses in Edinburg and San Juan asking for help.
On Monday, a woman called 911 to report she was being held against her will at a residence in Edinburg, according to a Border Patrol news release.
“Deputies and agents responded to the residence and encountered 28 noncitizens from Mexico and Central America in good health,” the release stated.
Border Patrol said that the stash house’s caretaker left before authorities arrived.
Then, on Aug. 12, San Juan police responded to 101 Eldora Road for a welfare check.
When police arrived, they could hear a woman yelling for help and upon entry, they found the woman and her minor daughter, according to a criminal complaint.
She told police she was being held by a man named “Ramiro,” who she picked out of a photo lineup and identified as the caretaker and owner of the house where they were being held.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Investigations special agents initiated surveillance on a vehicle associated with the man and McAllen police pulled him over for failing to maintain a single lane, according to the complaint.
The complaint identifies the suspect as Ramon Rodriguez Martinez, a Mexican citizen born in 1977.
That document also said he admitted to being in the country illegally and to being the caretaker of the stash house.
He made a first appearance in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Scott Hacker on Friday morning, court records indicate.
