Migrants who are applying for asylum in the U.S. walk to a border bridge as they make their way to their appointment with U.S. authorities, in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2019.
Fernando Llano / AP Photo
A Pennsylvania National guardsman and another soldier are accused of smuggling migrants from Mexico
Fort Hood soldier Ralph Gregory Saint-Joie, 18, and guardsman Emmanuel Oppongagyare, 20, made initial appearances before a federal magistrate Tuesday.
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The Associated Press
Fernando Llano / AP Photo
Migrants who are applying for asylum in the U.S. walk to a border bridge as they make their way to their appointment with U.S. authorities, in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2019.
(Laredo, Texas) — A Fort Hood soldier and a Pennsylvania National Guardsman stationed at the Central Texas installation have been charged with smuggling two men into Texas from Mexico.
Court records show Fort Hood soldier Ralph Gregory Saint-Joie, 18, and guardsman Emmanuel Oppongagyare, 20, made initial appearances before a federal magistrate Tuesday in Laredo. Both were held in custody under $75,000 bonds pending detention hearings next Tuesday.
A car Oppongagyaye was driving with Saint-Joie as a passenger, both in Army uniforms, approached a Border Patrol checkpoint in Hebbronville, about 150 miles south of San Antonio.
Gregory Bull / AP Photo
FILE PHOTO: Marines look on during work to fortify the border structure that separates Tijuana, Mexico, behind, and San Diego, near the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in San Diego.
A criminal complaint says that as agents performed an initial inspection, Oppongagyaye told them he and Saint-Joie were driving to San Antonio from the border town of Zapata, Texas.
When the car was referred for a secondary inspection, two Mexican nationals were found in its trunk, according to the complaint. Oppongagye told the agent that a man he met through Saint-Joie paid him $100 and promised an undetermined amount of money to pick up a man and a woman in McAllen and drive them to San Antonio.
Messages to the defendants’ court-appointed attorneys were not immediately returned. The migrants were being held as material witnesses.
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