Advertisement

Former border officer gets 5 years in prison for immigrant smuggling

Share

A former Customs and Border Protection officer who took bribes of money and sex to allow immigrants into the U.S. illegally through the San Ysidro Port of Entry was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.

Jose Luis Cota pleaded guilty in January to three charges of smuggling immigrants for financial gain and another charge of bribery. He admitted he was part of a small group of smugglers who brought in at least 10 people at a cost as high as $15,000 each, according to court records.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller also ordered Cota to forfeit two cars and $63,837 in cash — proceeds he got from the smuggling operation.

Advertisement

Cota was a 15-year veteran of Customs and Border Protection. From November 2015 to September 2016, court documents said, Cota worked with the husband-and-wife team of Miriam Juarez Herrera and Gilberto Aguilar Martinez to smuggle people through his inspection lane in San Ysidro.

He is the latest border officer to be ensnared in corruption allegations. Since 2004, when the federal government embarked on a hiring spree that doubled the size of CBP and the Border Patrol, some 200 officers and agents have been arrested on misconduct and corruption charges.

Though Customs and Border Protection repeatedly has said that number represents only a fraction of the total force of more than 43,000 officers and agents, the effects of Cota’s misconduct clearly troubled the judge.

“These offenses erode confidence in law enforcement in matters of national security and border security,” Miller said. Cota’s corruption fueled what the judge described as the belief that “there is a spot of rot in the foundations of government.”

And that belief, the veteran jurist said to Cota, has far wider impact.

“It affects national confidence in the ability of the government to simply do its job,” Miller said.

Cota apologized to his family for his conduct.

According to court records, the conspiracy started in November 2015, with Juarez recruiting immigrants to be smuggled in her vehicle and Cota waving them through his lanes at the port of entry. Aguilar handled the transportation of the clients once they had crossed the border, and he collected the smuggling fees. In addition to a share of the money, Cota also traded sexual favors from Juarez as part of the scheme.

Advertisement

Assistant U.S. Atty. Lara Stingley said in court that when Cota was arrested in September, investigators from the Border Corruption Task Force found a ledger in his backpack that listed in detail the money he had received from the smuggling and the dates he had received it.

Those dates corresponded to deposit dates in his personal bank account, Stingley said. Investigators also found $17,000 in cash when they searched his home.

Cota had a clean record before his involvement in the scheme. He was a decorated Army veteran who joined CBP and served without incident, Miller said.

Cota’s case comes at a time when the Trump administration is seeking to ramp up hiring for Border Patrol agents as part of its program to beef up border security. The Senate passed a bill this month that would allow Customs and Border Protection to waive a pre-employment polygraph exam for applicants who have experience in law enforcement or the military.

The tests were mandated by Congress in 2010 in response to the rising number of corruption cases involving border officers. CBP officials have said two-thirds of applicants fail the polygraph exam.

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

Advertisement

Moran writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Advertisement