Customs officials worried seized Mexican passports are bound for criminal immigrants
The federal agency responsible for inspecting incoming international mail is concerned people sneaking across the border are mailing themselves identifying documents from abroad, which would allow them to apply for driver's licenses and other benefits in the United States.
Last week, international mail inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in St. Louis seized four shipments from Guatemala and Mexico that contained two Mexican passports, two birth certificates, three identity certificates, and several vehicle registration cards.
While fake identification documents are regularly seized in the mail, these were valid government documents, and the passports belonged to two Mexican citizens. Neither of the two Mexicans obtained permission from the U.S. government to be in the country, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection explained.
“With it being in St. Louis, it’s kind of an oddity,” said Steve Bansbach, spokesman for CBP’s Midwestern region, adding the incident “may be on the rise as far as e-commerce.”
The incident also indicates immigrants who sought to evade arrest while crossing the border may be successfully getting past Border Patrol, as nearly half of agents are working indoors processing migrant families, not in the field.
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The seizures also give CBP reason to believe the two Mexican citizens may have illegally made it into the country and reside at the Granite City, Illinois, and St. Louis addresses the items were bound for.
Of the two Mexican citizens, one had been ordered to be deported after illegally crossing the border in September 2020. The other was arrested in St. Louis in 2010 for felony forgery.
“Now we have to worry about, are they actually here?” Bansbach said.
Both Mexican citizens may have chosen not to bring their passports with them because Border Patrol agents would check the identity in the passport if they were caught at the border. Migrants with criminal histories or who a judge has previously ordered by removed from the U.S. would be a priority for removal if encountered at the border.
CBP’s director for the Chicago field office, LaFonda Sutton-Burke, said in a statement that fraudulent activity like this is a "major" concern to the agency.
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The documents were turned over to CBP’s Fraudulent Document Analysis Unit, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, which will look into this specific incident. Bansbach did not disclose if CBP was tipped off or how it knew to inspect the parcels that contained the documents.
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Tags: News, Waste and Fraud, Passports, Cartel, Crime, Immigration, Customs and Border Protection, St. Louis, Shipping
Original Author: Anna Giaritelli
Original Location: Customs officials worried seized Mexican passports are bound for criminal immigrants
