Shelter operator forced migrants to do construction work

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A migrant shelter operator in Juarez, Mexico, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on a charge of human trafficking/forced labor.

A Chihuahua state judge on Monday also ordered Velia H.G., a Protestant pastor, to pay $3,500 in damages to migrants she allegedly coerced into doing construction work for free on her property.

The conviction and sentence stem from a July 2022 police raid on the Aposento Alto (High Throne) shelter in the Lomas de Poleo neighborhood near the U.S. border wall at Sunland Park, New Mexico. The raid came after government officials who inspected the shelter heard testimony from guests saying the director required them to work for her under the threat of expulsion, according to prosecutors.

“Between October 2021 and April 2022, (Velia H.G.) forced the victims to do construction work for her benefit. Also, she threatened to deny shelter or interfere in their immigration proceedings, subjected them to unfair living conditions that deprived them of dignity,” the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office said in a statement after the sentencing.

Velia H.G. consistently denied the charges. Mexican law prohibits authorities from releasing the full names of suspects.

Aposento Alto is among 20 or more church-run migrant shelters that have opened in Juarez since 2018. Most are small facilities built behind Protestant churches and most depend on donations to provide food and pay for utilities, Border Report reporting over the past four years has established.

Although they don’t license them, state authorities inspect shelters to ensure migrants aren’t living in squalor and that human rights are observed. The inspection at Aposento Alto initially prompted a notice to the state Human Rights Commission. That led to a state police criminal investigation.

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