Brownsville, TX — Joe Adam Escobedo, 31, a South Texas man, has been sentenced to 69 months in federal prison after smuggling multiple groups of undocumented immigrants into the United States on two separate occasions. The sentencing was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas on Monday.
U.S. District Judge David Morales ordered that Escobedo serve 57 months for each of the smuggling cases, to run concurrently, with an additional 12 months added consecutively for a total of 69 months in federal prison. Notably, Escobedo committed the second offense while out on bond for the first smuggling charge.
On April 12, 2024, Escobedo drove a tractor-trailer to the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint, claiming he was transporting pineapples to Michigan. However, a K-9 alerted Border Patrol agents to the vehicle, leading to the discovery of seven undocumented immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico hidden in the sleeper area of the truck.
Escobedo was charged with smuggling and released on bond. He was caught again on June 11, 2024, driving a refrigerated tractor-trailer through the same checkpoint. Suspicious behavior led agents to refer him to secondary inspection, where a scan revealed irregularities in the trailer. Inside, they found 42 undocumented immigrants from Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico.
U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei emphasized the dangers of alien smuggling, stating, “The Southern District of Texas will vigorously pursue alien smuggling cases, given the risk they pose both to the persons smuggled as well as the public at large. All it would have taken is a refrigeration malfunction for this smuggling scheme to have turned deadly.”