{"id":97628,"date":"2025-07-27T20:50:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T20:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/97628\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T20:50:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T20:50:23","slug":"national-guardsman-from-houston-convicted-for-smuggling-migrants-into-u-s-ice-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/97628\/","title":{"rendered":"National Guardsman from Houston convicted for smuggling migrants into U.S., ICE says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\"><strong>CORPUS CHRISTI, TExas<\/strong> &#8211; A National Guard member from Houston was reportedly found guilty of smuggling migrants into the U.S. while in South Texas, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/news\/releases\/national-guard-soldier-deployed-south-texas-help-secure-border-convicted-smuggling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>   National Guard member guilty of smuggling <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-bd34935e=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">In a press release, ICE says 27-year-old Mario Sandoval of Houston was &#8220;found guilty of conspiring to smuggle illegal aliens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">Sandoval was deployed with the Texas National Guard at the U.S.-Mexico border for <a href=\"https:\/\/gov.texas.gov\/operationlonestar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Operation Lonestar<\/a>, an initiative targeting illegal immigration in Texas.<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">According to ICE, after Sandoval was released from his orders, he stayed in the Rio Grande Valley and began smuggling migrants into the country in July 2024.<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">He was reportedly discharged from the Texas National Guard in October 2024.<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">Officials say Sandoval&#8217;s guilty verdict was reached after a one-day trial and less than one hour of jury deliberation.<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">Allegedly, the jury was shown text messages from Sandoval&#8217;s phone saying drivers were needed for trips from the Rio Grande Valley to areas north of the immigration checkpoint.<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">ICE says there was also surveillance that showed Sandoval&#8217;s location at the immigration checkpoint while he was sending texts about the presence of law enforcement and K-9 units.<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">Sandoval&#8217;s sentencing date is set for October 22, and he faces up to 10 years in federal prison, according to ICE.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-bd34935e=\"\">What we don&#8217;t know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-bd34935e=\"\">No other information about this case is available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\"><b data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source:<\/b> Press release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-bd34935e=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime and Public Safety<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/immigration\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-bd34935e=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Immigration<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/houston\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-bd34935e=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/us\/tx\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-bd34935e=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, TExas &#8211; A National Guard member from Houston was reportedly found guilty of smuggling migrants into&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":97629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[6082,4345,409,50,358,3187,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-97628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114927175089907378","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}