Story by TIM SULLIVAN
A contract employee with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of two people in federal custody accused of transporting more than three dozen people in the country illegally.
Authorities say 35-year-old Nancy Fernandez Luna was in a charter bus carrying 39 undocumented immigrants and being driven by a Mexican national. The bus had entered the Border Patrol’s Falfurrias checkpoint last Friday. According to a criminal complaint obtained by the McAllen Monitor, Fernandez showed her ICE contractor identification card and tried to convince agents the bus was transporting juveniles who had contracted COVID-19.
However a call to the Border Patrol’s Central Processing Center determined no transport buses were operating that day and the manifest was found to be fraudulent. Fernandez and the bus driver were arrested and are scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate Tuesday.