U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered two undocumented immigrants hiding in the trunk of a small vehicle at a California checkpoint, according to a news release.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, agents on Saturday referred a Nissan Sentra to a secondary inspection on Highway 78 at the Blythe Station checkpoint, located near the California-Arizona border, KRQE reported. CBP agents said they found two Mexican nationals hiding in the trunk of the Sentra, according to the news release.
Agents seized the vehicle and arrested the female driver and a male passenger, who were both U.S. citizens, on charges of “alien smuggling.”
The aliens were also arrested for immigration violations and were returned to Mexico, the CBP said in its release.
“Smugglers, who are driven only by financial gains, have no regard for their human cargo and often hide them in confined spaces like a vehicle’s trunk in an effort to sneak them past law enforcement and through federal checkpoints,” CBP stated in its news release. “Luckily, this incident did not prove to be successful for these two smugglers, and the aliens were found to be in good health.”