Men caught with 22 immigrants in Brownsville (KGBT-TX)

Men caught with 22 immigrants in Brownsville
By Sergio Chapa
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 6:02 p.m.

Two men remain behind bars after federal authorities allegedly caught them taking 22 illegal immigrants to a stash house in Brownsville.

U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents charged Edgar Villanueva-Sanchez and Apolinar Rocha-Morales with human smuggling charges on Monday.

Few details were available in the case but a criminal complaint revealed that the two men were caught transporting 22 illegal immigrants in a car.

Investigators wrote that the two men picked up the immigrants at the Rio Grande and were on their way to a stash house in Brownsville when they were arrested.

Villanueva-Sanchez and Rocha-Morales both appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Morgan in Brownsville on Tuesday morning where they were denied bond.

Morgan ordered that two Honduran immigrants named Kevin Godin Ortega-Espinoza and Marlon Gerardo Ramirez-Mancia be held as witnesses in the cases.