Jackie Nichole Hall said she just wanted to “fool around” with her boyfriend near the border.
But he said they were actually sitting in their vehicle near the Mexico boundary in Texas because she was there to smuggle illegal immigrants.
Now both stand charged with alien smuggling, and Ms. Hall is also accused of assaulting a federal agent after accosting him and throwing a water bottle at him.
Border Patrol agents first spotted their Kia sedan on July 7 near the border along what agents consider a “notorious” smuggling route. When agents stopped the car, five people jumped out of the rear doors of the sedan and fled.
Ms. Hall and John Christopher Ramirez stayed in the Kia.
Under questioning, Ms. Hall said they came from Odessa, Texas, to Presidio to watch the sunset and then “drive in a little ways and fool around.”
Asked about the curious choice of location right along the shoulder of a road, she told agents she liked “a little danger.” She said they “were about to do some of that fooling around” when the back door suddenly opened and people piled into the sedan and demanded she start driving.
She told agents she figured they were illegal immigrants because only one spoke English.
When agents went through her phone, they found an odd contact under the name “boss,” with a Mexican number. She claimed it was her cousin she hadn’t seen in 15 years, but who went by the nickname boss and with whom she communicated with regularly.
She then lunged for the phone in an agent’s hand. And when he was taking her back to a holding cell, she threw a bottle of water at him, according to the criminal case documents. Those two actions earned her an assault charge, as well as the migrant smuggling charge.
Her boyfriend gave a decidedly different story, saying they were in Presidio to smuggle illegal immigrants — something they’d done at least three times before. He characterized Ms. Hall as the chief smuggler, saying she gets about $2,000 per person she’s driven north.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.