La Joya police busts immigrants near school (The Monitor)

La Joya police busts immigrants near school
September 02, 2009 4:04 PM

Jared Taylor
The Monitor

LA JOYA — Police found six illegal immigrants left behind in a pickup truck after a brief pursuit Wednesday afternoon.

A La Joya patrol officer patrolling along Leo Avenue, north of Highway 83 saw a brown 1985 Ford pickup truck with a suspicious registration sticker shortly after noon Wednesday, said Officer Joe Cantu, a department spokesman.

The officer turned around and followed the truck, which eventually headed west toward Farm-to-Market Road 2221. The truck's plates registered to a different vehicle and the officer tried to pull over the truck, which took off and turned north on FM 2221, Cantu said.

The truck stopped and its driver bailed out with two other men, who ran in different directions into adjacent fields near La Joya school district property, Cantu said. Still in neutral, the pickup rolled back and bumped into a La Joya patrol car.

Upon closer inspection, the truck had a photocopied registration sticker from another vehicle.

Left behind were a Brazilian woman and five men found hiding beneath sheets of plywood and orange construction cones in the pickup truck's bed.

Officers turned over the six illegal immigrants to the U.S. Border Patrol. Those arrested were citizens of Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico — and they were trying to reach different destinations in the U.S., including California, Houston, Boston and Miami, Cantu said.

"We were surprised to find so many countries in one truck," Cantu said.