McALLEN — Three members of the same Edinburg family are facing charges in federal court for trying to smuggle a group of migrants out of the Rio Grande Valley via charter plane.
Federal agents arrested German Perez-Espinoza, 37, his wife, Teresa Rodriguez, 45, and her daughter, Maria Belen Salinas, 20, in Harlingen on Nov. 16 while the trio was attempting to use a private plane to smuggle a group of eight migrants to Houston.
A fourth person, 36-year-old Jason Anthony Garcia, was also arrested as part of the scheme.
The group allegedly transported the migrants from Hidalgo County to the unnamed Harlingen airport in two vehicles, according to a criminal complaint against them.
Perez and his wife drove six migrants in one vehicle, while Salinas and Garcia transported the remaining two migrants in a second vehicle, the complaint states.
Border Patrol agents watched as the eight migrants and Garcia boarded the plane.
“(Agents) performed an immigration inspection on the passengers and determined that the 8 individuals aboard the aircraft… were illegally present in the United States,” the complaint states.
At least two of the migrants — a man and a woman — are from El Salvador and were held in custody as material witnesses.
Perez and Rodriguez, the husband and wife, used their Edinburg home to hold at least some of the migrants until transporting them to the airport, according to the complaint and statements made in open court last Wednesday.
Rodriguez is also accused of providing photographs of the migrants that were then used to create fake IDs, according to U.S. Magistrate Judge Juan F. Alanis.
“You may have been involved with providing them with fake identity cards,” Alanis said during Rodriguez’s bond and detention hearing.
Rodriguez was the last of the four to go before the magistrate judge for a bond hearing.
Prosecutors asked that she be held without bond pending trial, saying she is a potential flight risk and citing that she had been using her own home to harbor migrants.
The government also noted a separate smuggling event that Rodriguez allegedly participated in in July 2021, but for which no charges were filed.
Prosecutors implied that some of Rodriguez’s other adult children may have been involved in that incident that ended at the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint, as well.
Rodriguez has five children between the ages of 20 and 28.
“The government is concerned that they may also be co-conspirators,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jongwoo “Daniel” Chung said.
But Rodriguez’s defense attorney, Douglas Allen A’Hern, asked the judge to take into consideration his client’s long-term disability and that she cooperated with law enforcement during her most recent arrest.
Alanis, the magistrate judge, noted that Rodriguez dropped out of school in the seventh grade and was last employed as a farmworker picking onions nearly 30 years ago.
Alanis set Rodriguez’s bond at $30,000 with a $2,000 deposit.
The judge further set bond for her daughter, Maria Belen, at $10,000 with a $500 deposit during a separate detention hearing last Tuesday.
Salinas posted bond Monday, though her mother remains in custody, court records show.
Meanwhile, Alanis ordered the two men, Perez and Garcia, to be held without bond pending trial.
