Border Patrol finds 13-year-old attempted to help 10 migrants
The SUV was packed with migrants, including an unaccompanied girl.
U.S. Border Patrol agents disrupted a smuggling attempt in which a 13-year-old boy drove an SUV filled with 10 illegal migrants, officials said.
The young teen was stopped over the weekend in Deming, New Mexico, about 40 minutes north of the southern border, The New York Post reported.
The SUV was packed with migrants, including an unaccompanied girl.
The boy is a U.S. citizen and is in the custody of the New Mexico State Police. The adult migrants were expelled from the United States and the girl was brought to a Texas processing center.
The 13-year-old was one of two teenagers with U.S. citizenship who was allegedly recruited by a cartel to smuggle migrants.
"In two [separate] events, agents thwarted 3 vehicular smuggling schemes resulting in the interception of 23 smuggled migrants from #Mexico & #Guatemala," Border Patrol El Paso Sector Chief Peter Jaquez tweeted.
Details about the second failed attempt were not immediately available.
Teenage drivers are enticed by money offered by the cartels, often between $2,000 to $3,000 a person, according to Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez.