MIAMI – Florida highway police discovered eight undocumented immigrants inside a van, stopping its driver for having tinted windows that are not allowed, local media reported this Saturday.
The driver, the Mexican Javier Palma-Jenaro, aged 40, was arrested and the eight immigrants made available to the immigration authorities , according to information from the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) about the event that occurred in Hernando County (western Florida).
The truck, with license plates from the state of Arizona, bordering Mexico, had stickers with the US flag on the windows.
According to police information, inside the back of the truck there were fans and boxes of water and soft drinks, and the eight immigrants, whose identities and nationalities have not been revealed, were all wearing the same yellow T-shirts. fluorescent yellow.
When the patrolmen stopped him and asked for his documentation, Palma-Jenaro presented a Mexican passport and an expired driver’s license from the same country.
The Mexican is being held in the Hernando County Jail and faces charges of human trafficking, in addition to several violations of traffic regulations.
The event gained more notoriety in light of the recent death of 53 immigrants who were traveling crammed into a truck that looked like a refrigerated vehicle that was found abandoned in San Antonio (Texas).
The Florida Highway Patrol said in a statement that Palma-Jenaro confessed in an interrogation that he traveled from Milwaukee to Phoenix (Arizona) to look for the eight immigrants, whom he had to take to a place in Fort Myers (southwest Florida).
The detainee, who had $3,700 dollars in his possession, he told the patrolmen that he charged $250 for each passenger.
Last Wednesday in Sumter, another Floridian county, patrolmen detained the driver of a vehicle with an expired Texas license plate and a crack in the windshield.
Along with the driver, José Juárez, who is in custody, was a man who presented a Mexican passport without US entry stamps and was later confirmed to have been deported once.
On June 30, the Florida Supreme Court granted a petition by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to create a grand jury with jurisdiction over all the state that deals especially with human trafficking, including immigrants and foreign children who arrive in the country unaccompanied.
DeSantis, a conservative who aspires to be re-elected governor this year and, according to different sources, may compete with Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, is a defender of zero tolerance against irregular immigration.
The Court ordered the creation of this special jury “without delay”, which will function in principle for twelve months and will be presided over by Judge Ellen S. Masters.
It will be dedicated to investigating crimes, formulating accusations and carrying out all the other functions of those judicial bodies.
2024