Florida To Go After Parents Who Pay Cartels To Smuggle Their Children Into the US

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Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is looking to investigate and prosecute parents who pay transnational criminal organizations to smuggle their children illegally across the U.S. southern border.

*Unaccompanied minors hold hands as they await transport after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico on a raft in Penitas, Texas, on March 12, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)*

DeSantis filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court on June 17 requesting a statewide grand jury be impaneled for the initial duration of a year.

“The purpose of the grand jury will be to investigate individuals and organizations that are actively working with foreign nationals, drug cartels, coyotes, to illegally smuggle minors—some as young as 2 years old—across the border and into Florida,” De Santis said during a press briefing on June 17.

“This is just wrong what they’re doing and we are going to go after it.”

The grand jury will also investigate the methods smugglers use to transport unaccompanied minors across the southern border and the smuggling or trafficking of other illegal aliens.

*Border Patrol agents apprehend and transport illegal immigrants who have just crossed the river into La Joya, Texas, on Nov. 17, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)*

DeSantis also announced that the Florida Highway Patrol is expanding its enforcement on smuggling and trafficking corridors into the state.

Since January 2021, the state’s Highway Patrol officers have made over 40 cases of human smuggling involving 150 illegal alien passengers, as well as seized 115 pounds of cocaine, 20 pounds of heroin, 250 pounds of meth, and 272 weapons, according to Florida Highway Patrol Director Col. Gene Spaulding.

“And I can’t emphasize enough that it is just scratching the surface,” Spaulding said.

The grand jury will also investigate local governments that are “aiding this smuggling scheme by intentionally violating our state law against sanctuary jurisdictions,” DeSantis said, referring to cities and counties, such as Miami-Dade, that fail to turn over criminal illegal aliens to federal immigration authorities.

“According to reports from federal law enforcement, however, Miami-Dade County is refusing to honor federal requests to take custody of criminal aliens in Miami-Dade’s detention facilities, including aliens arrested for attempted murder, domestic violence by strangulation, assault with a deadly weapon, and lewd and lascivious behavior on a minor,” the petition states.

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