BORTAC raids migrant stash house

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Members of a Border Patrol special forces unit took down two alleged migrant stash house operators during the execution of a search warrant in southern Arizona.

The Aug. 20 raid came after months of Border Patrol surveillance at the house in the 900 block of American Avenue in Bisbee, Arizona. The agents observed vehicles approach the home and drop off passengers; on numerous occasions, they arrested drivers carrying migrants they had picked up at that location, court documents allege.

Agents with the Border Patrol Tactical Response Team (BORTAC) assembled outside the home at 7:45 a.m. and instructed through a loudspeaker anyone inside to come out. Two men and a woman came out and were placed in custody. Records show the agents continued to instruct others, in English and Spanish, to come out. When nobody did, the tactical unit went in.

BORTAC agents didn’t find anyone else, but they went into the backyard and kept looking. An agent observed fresh footprints going into a neighboring residence and the team followed. The second home appeared to be vacant and had a side door that had been cracked open. Court records show the agents conducted a safety check and found seven foreign nationals who were in the country illegally trying to hide.

The three U.S. citizens who came out of the house on American Avenue were transported to a Border Patrol station and identified as Gregory Jerold Rhinehart, Sarah Maley and Thomas Cain Alvarez.

Of the three, only Alvarez waived his rights and provided a video-recorded statement. He told Border Patrol investigators he was laid off recently from his job at a concrete manufacturing facility.

He said a man nicknamed “Cubano” learned of his plight and approached him with a job offer. Alvarez said Cubano offered him money to hold in his house individuals who would later be transported elsewhere, court records show. When asked why he agreed, Alvarez allegedly “got emotional” and told investigators, “It was a money thing.”

He said the woman in the house was his sister and Rhinehart her boyfriend.

After interviewing the seven migrants, investigators decided to charge Alvarez and Rhinehart with conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens. Records don’t show the sister being charged.

The Border Patrol later identified “Cubano” as Jesus Calvo, a man recently convicted in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on a charge of transporting illegal aliens for profit.

The migrants told agents they paid or committed to pay smugglers in Naco, Sonora, Mexico, up to $10,000 to be smuggled over the U.S. border wall, transported to the safe house and later be delivered to jobs in North Carolina. The migrants said they only knew the smugglers by their nicknames: “Osbaldo” and “El Padrino” (The Godfather).

Detention and preliminary hearings are scheduled for Aug. 30 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Eileen S Willett in the federal courthouse in Phoenix.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to BorderReport.