Instead of attending his high school graduation ceremony, an El Paso-area teenager was in jail after being arrested in a migrant smuggling high-speed chase on the West Side, court officials said.

The Operation Lone Star case is among the continuing risks young people face getting involved in border migrant smuggling vehicle pursuits on El Paso’s streets.

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Jabin Encinas, 17, is accused of leading Texas state troopers on an 80 mph chase through residential streets in a Chevrolet Silverado transporting undocumented migrants, Assistant District Attorney John Briggs said at a teleconference bond hearing on Sunday, June. 2.

Encinas, of Socorro, was booked into the El Paso County Jail on Friday, May 31, on charges of smuggling of persons with a firearm, unlawful carrying of a weapon and evading arrest in a vehicle. He was released on a surety bond on Tuesday.

Under Texas law, persons 17 and older are considered adults in the criminal justice system.

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Encinas has no prior criminal record, had completed high school and was supposed to have taken part in his graduation ceremony last Saturday, public defense attorney Richard “Rick” Huffman said at the bond hearing. The name of the high school was not disclosed.

Huffman added that Encinas, who lives with his mother and grandmother, plans to study mechanical engineering and is enrolled to start soon at the University of Texas at El Paso.

“I spoke to his mom. His mom was really surprised by this. This is way out of character, judge,” Huffman told Magistrate Judge Ruben Nuñez at the hearing while seeking to have the bond amounts reduced.

West El Paso migrant smuggler pursuit

The incident started in the border smuggling hot zone near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, just west of El Paso.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers monitoring U.S. Border Patrol radio transmissions learned that a group of migrants had climbed over the border wall in New Mexico and were heading to a known smuggler pick-up spot, Briggs said at the hearing.

The migrants got into a Chevrolet Silverado, which a trooper found on Artcraft Road after it crossed the state line into Texas, the prosecutor said. The trooper attempted to pull over the truck because a brake light was out and registration expired in 2022.

The pursuit began when the driver of the Silverado refused to stop and traveled up Artcraft Road across Interstate 10 past a Walmart store into a neighborhood, Briggs said.

In the neighborhood, the truck momentarily stopped as three men and a woman exited and ran off before the driver continued, going 80 mph through residential streets and running red lights, almost causing several accidents before eventually stopping, the prosecutor said.

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Troopers found a loaded .40-caliber Glock 23 handgun in the truck’s center console — which made the human smuggling charge more serious because it involved a firearm, Briggs, the prosecutor, said.

One of the persons arrested after running from the truck was an undocumented Mexican citizen, who was allegedly the “guide” for other migrants who led them on foot over the border, the prosecution said.

‘Placed a lot of people in danger’

Encinas, who is accused of being the driver, was arrested on charges of smuggling of persons with a firearm, unlawful carrying of a weapon and evading arrest in a vehicle. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail in Downtown.

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Bonds were set at:

• $50,000 for the smuggling case
• $40,000 for evading arrest in a vehicle
• $10,000 for unlawful carrying of a weapon

Huffman, the public defender, argued that the young man didn’t have a criminal record and the bonds were too high for his mother to pay. Nuñez, the judge, refused to lower the bond amount.

“Mr. Encinas, I’m not going to lower your bond,” Nuñez told him. “What it is alleged that you did placed a lot of people in danger — not just you, the people that were in the vehicle, law enforcement officers that were chasing you, but more importantly, the citizens of this community.”

Jail records show Encinas was released Tuesday on a surety bond.

Smuggler groups hiring drivers in El Paso

The pursuit last week is part of a continuing pattern of Texas DPS vehicle chases of migrant smugglers on the El Paso border.

Migrant trafficking — with its associated crimes of smuggling, kidnapping and extortion — is now as profitable as drugs for Mexican cartels on the border, Chihuahua state law enforcement officials have said.

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In the lower rungs of the smuggling organizations are the “load drivers” on the U.S. side who are hired to pick up and transport migrants after they illegally cross the border.

Generally, the drivers take the migrant “load” to a meeting spot, where someone else then transports them to a stash house, where they stay before their journey continues to other U.S. cities. Drivers are ordered not to stop for police.

Operation Lone Star made at least 33 arrests for human smuggling in the El Paso region from April 19 to May 16, according to a Texas DPS West Texas Region post on X. Those arrested were men ranging in age from 18 to 65 years old.

Border migrant smuggling: Payments and pitfalls

A quick look back at migrant smuggling cases in the El Paso Times in recent years shows drivers were to be paid from $50 to $1,000 per person — most payments appeared to be about $200 to $350 per migrant.

Teenagers and young people are being recruited by smugglers with risk-filled promises of easy cash on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and other social media, Texas DPS spokesman Sgt. Eliot Torres said in an email.

Some of those smuggler runs ended in fatal crashes and, in at least one case, a teen driver faces a murder charge set for trial next year after a Mexican migrant died in a crash while fleeing a trooper on North Mesa Street last year.

Texas DPS gives school presentations on “the dangers of human smuggling and the pitfalls that our youth go through due to recruitment to smuggle humans,” Torres said.

“Our advice is the same with any crime,” Torres said. “You get paid what you think is a lot of money to transport humans. In reality, you’re paid just a small fee that can ruin the rest of your life.”