Desert Guides at a High Price

A local woman who has assisted undocumented citizens over the border, knows Loredo and Aguero’s story because she too has lived it.

Born in Texas and raised in Mexico, she came back to Texas where her family made a living traveling as migrant workers. She refused to give her name.

The mother of five told the story of how she was caught for helping her then-partner cross the border illegally.

She said while they were in a relationship, he was deported. Shortly after, she traveled to Mexico and was caught at the Del Rio, Texas, border trying to pass him through as an American.

Fiscal Year 2013 U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics

Fiscal Year 2013 U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics

Border Patrol data for 2013 indicates the Del Rio sector alone had an estimated 23,500 apprehensions, including 14,500 Mexican nationals.

She served three months in prison, and two weeks later, she said, he crossed back through with the help of a coyote.

The coyote, she said, brought him all the way to a place in Dallas where they housed other illegal immigrants.

“That’s where I picked him up, and that’s where you have to pay them the money,” she said. “And, if you don’t pay the $3,500, they’ll keep them ‘till you can give them the money.”

After his long struggle to try to gain citizenship, the unnamed woman said the pressures were just too much for her — so they parted ways.

Upon further investigation, a public affairs specialist for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Dennis Smith, revealed this particular woman was apprehended at the Del Rio border and charged with aiding and abetting when she was caught crossing with a young Mexican child in her care.

She served her sentence in Val Verde Correctional Facility in Del Rio, Texas.

She said her former partner’s quest to become a legal American continues today as he is currently living in Texas.

Read also: Life in Juarez.

About Lucinda Holt

Enterprise Editor - Journalism major and anthropology minor. Graduates in December 2014. Lucinda is a non-traditional student with an associate degree in journalism from Western Texas College in Snyder. She hopes to build a career as a foreign correspondent.