Story by TIM SULLIVAN
A contract employee with Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been granted bond following her arrest late last week on human smuggling charges. ValleyCentral.com reports a McAllen federal magistrate Tuesday set a $50,000 bond for Nancy Fernandez Luna who was arraigned on a charge of transporting people in the country illegally.
The 35-year-old Luna is alleged to have devised a scheme to get more than three dozen undocumented immigrants past the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias. Federal prosecutors say the scheme involved the use of a charter bus and a false claim that the people Luna were transporting were juveniles who had contracted COVID-19. The scheme fell apart last Friday when agents stopped the bus, checked the passengers as well as the manifest, and determined Luna’s story was false.