An Arizona woman was sentenced to 135 months in El Paso federal court after pleading guilty to her involvement in a human smuggling operation that led to the deaths of two unlawful migrants.
Guadalupe Quezada, 35, was the last of three women to be sentenced in connection with a conspiracy to help unlawful migrants from Mexico enter the United States between November 2019 and August 2021. She will spend 135 months in federal prison. Her co-conspirators, another Arizona woman named Veronica Quezada, 39, and Elizabeth Miranda Lozano, 39, of Dallas, were sentenced to 63 months and 97 months, respectively.
Veronica Quezada managed the logistics side of things by traveling daily to Mexico to organize the foot guides who would take unlawful migrants across the Chihuahuan desert near Van Horn. She would also secure vehicles for drivers to use to pick groups up after the crossing and transport them to the stash house.
Lozano acted as a driver and managed the stash house.
Two deaths were tied to this operation after foot guides left two unlawful migrants in the desert when they could not keep up.
All three co-defendants pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to bring an alien to the United States resulting in death, after their illegal dealings were uncovered through an investigation by Homeland Security.
The U.S. Border Patrol Big Bend and Tucson sectors, Dallas Enforcement Removal Operations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Dallas Police Department, and the Hudspeth Country Sheriff’s Office also helped bring the co-defendants to justice.
“The dangerous smuggling of human beings across our border has become far too prevalent, and those engage in or facilitate this activity must account for their deadly dealings,” said Jaime Esparza, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, according to a news release.
“I commend the joint multi-district efforts of our local, state, and federal partners to bring this case to a successful close. We will continue working together at all levels of law enforcement to aggressively prosecute human smugglers as long as their operations persist,” he said.
A new Texas state law will come into effect in February, enhancing the criminal penalties for human smugglers and operators of stash houses, as previously covered by The Dallas Express. The law will also criminalize the unlawful crossing from a foreign country into Texas and allow state law enforcement officers to apprehend anybody suspected of having done so.
Some stakeholders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have predicted a rush of crossing attempts to occur before February.