Feds allege detained migrant leader in Vermont sought to smuggle Mexican woman across Canadian border

Boston Globe

a day ago

An employee-owner of a green building cooperative and a former farmworker, De La Cruz is a leader of the Vermont-based advocacy group
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But in a search warrant filed last month and made public in federal court proceedings, the government alleges that De La Cruz was paid to help smuggle a Mexican woman across the Canadian border to the U.S. in April.
De La Cruz, known as 'Nacho,' has not had the opportunity to respond to the allegation in court. His attorney, Brett Stokes, did not return requests for comment Tuesday.
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The government has not suggested that De La Cruz was engaged in human smuggling at the time of his arrest, nor that the Border Patrol agent who pulled him over was aware of the allegations. During a hearing related to Perez's case Monday in federal court in Burlington, Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher said the government has no evidence that Perez, his stepdaughter, was involved in the alleged smuggling scheme.
A search warrant application filed by a Border Patrol investigator and signed by a federal magistrate judge seeks access to De La Cruz's phone, which was seized during last month's traffic stop. It's not clear whether the phone has yet been searched.
The document says Border Patrol agents detained a woman named Yoselin Gonzalez Florez in Richford on April 19 after she crossed the border, on foot, through the woods. Upon inspecting her phone, agents discovered text messages between Gonzalez and a number belonging to De La Cruz, as well as between Gonzalez and another U.S.-based associate identified as 'Armando.'
The exchanges, which took place between April 9 and 11, describe Armando meeting up with a person named Nacho to pay him $5,000 for Gonzalez's trip across the border. Armando wrote that Nacho would pick her up once she made it to the U.S.
After Armando provided Gonzalez with Nacho's phone number — which matches De La Cruz's — Nacho and Gonzalez communicated directly about logistics. 'The NACHO NUMBER responded to GONZALEZ by saying that he would contact the person smuggling GONZALEZ across the border for the location to pick her up,' according to the application.
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The government suggests that Nacho planned to pay the person accompanying Gonzalez a portion of the $5,000 — and that such arrangements are common, to ensure that a smuggler is fully compensated only once the person being smuggled has arrived.
It appears from the communications that Gonzalez planned to cross from Ontario into upstate New York late on the night of April 10, and that Nacho planned to meet her shortly thereafter and bring her to his home in the Burlington area. But for unspecified reasons that plan changed, and the next morning Gonzalez told Nacho she would instead attempt to cross through the woods closer to Montreal at a later date.
What happened next is also unclear. Gonzalez was detained eight days later after walking from Quebec to Vermont. The government has not alleged that De La Cruz was involved with that crossing.
The agent who filed the search warrant application, David Palczewski, wrote that, while he had previously determined that the phone number was associated with a Jose Ignacio De La Cruz, that knowledge had not led to his detention. Only after De La Cruz and Perez were pulled over in June did Palczewski make the connection, he wrote.
Will Lambek, a spokesperson for Migrant Justice, said in a written statement Tuesday that the new allegationsdid not change 'the essential fact that Nacho and Heidi were detained without cause' while dropping off food at a nearby farm.
'Border Patrol claims that Nacho had previously made a plan to give a ride to a woman who was planning on immigrating to the United States without authorization,' Lambek wrote. 'If true, this incident is wholly unrelated to the actual circumstances of their violent detainment on June 14th.'
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Rather, Lambek alleged, Border Patrol had engaged in 'racial profiling' when making the traffic stop last month, coming up with 'flimsy pretexts' to justify it and violating the constitutional rights of De La Cruz and his stepdaughter.
The new court filings provide additional details about the stop. At the time a Border Patrol agent noticed De La Cruz's vehicle, he and Perez were less than a mile from the border, on a road frequently associated with illegal crossings. Another passenger van had been spotted in the area earlier this year collecting people who had just crossed the border, though photographs in the filings make clear they are not the same vehicle.
The agent, Brandon Parent, wrote that the pair 'became visibly nervous' once they saw him and failed to make a full stop at an intersection. He said he thought he saw other people through the van's tinted windows, though he later realized he was incorrect. After running a license check, he pulled them over.
De La Cruz and Perez declined to roll down their windows more than a few inches, nor to identify themselves. After another agent and a supervisor arrived — and the pair continued to refuse their orders — the supervisor, Thomas Blaser Jr., smashed the driver's side window with his baton and pulled De La Cruz out of the van.
Blaser later realized he had cut his right arm on the window glass, requiring a visit to the hospital and eight stitches.
In their account of the incident, De La Cruz and Perez say the agents failed to say why they were being pulled over. At a nearby station, they wrote, an agent 'aggressively' bent Perez's arm when she refused to be fingerprinted. Both said they were prevented from calling an attorney.
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At Monday's federal court hearing in Burlington, Stokes, who also represents Perez, argued that she should be released because the government had violated her rights to due process and against unreasonable search and seizure. He also claimed the government had violated her right to free speech, given her public advocacy with Migrant Justice.
But US District Judge Christina Reiss appeared skeptical, noting that if Border Patrol had not known Perez's identity when pulling over the van, she could not have been targeted for her speech.
As for whether Border Patrol was justified in stopping De La Cruz and Perez, Reiss said, 'We have these stops in our court a lot, and these facts are enough for reasonable suspicion.'
The judge did not immediately rule on Stokes' request, instead asking for further briefs later this month.