The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that an individual who was in the United States under the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program, and another individual whose DACA protections had expired, were arrested on suspicion of human smuggling.
In two separate incidents last week, federal officials said on Monday, so-called “Dreamers” were caught trafficking humans.
The first instance happened near Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego, when border agents pulled over a driver, a 20-year-old DACA recipient whose status had expired, and two Mexican nationals, ages 21 and 22, suspected of being in the country illegally.
Federal officials said the driver and his cousin, the 22-year-old passenger, told agents they had been involved in human smuggling in the area. The driver is currently in federal custody.
The second DACA Dreamer, a 22-year-old Mexican national living in Riverside County was arrested while “scouting the area to aid a group of smugglers”.
According to federal officials he “had committed other acts of human smuggling,” the Union-Tribune reported.
But an “expert” immigration attorney named Stephanie M. Alcala said the stories were “made up”.
“DACA recipients are usually, 99 percent of the cases, the ideal immigrants, so it’s not that these events are impossible – it’s that they don’t make sense as presented – and it seems more inflammatory than it needs to be, ” Alcala claimed:
But two more Dreamers were arrested for human smuggling in October 2017.