People who helped organize, fund and coach migrants with the latest Central American caravan headed toward the U.S. could be prosecuted for “alien smuggling and racketeering charges” or “aiding and abetting false statements for immigration purposes,” former Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor James Trusty said Tuesday night on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
“It depends on a lot of facts that I’m not totally certain on at this point. But the bottom line is, if they are organizing and financing and trying to encourage people to cross illegally and to cross outside a point of entry, it’s at least arguable that there’s alien smuggling and racketeering charges that could be investigated,” Trusty (pictured above right) told host Laura Ingraham.
Trusty, who served as the DOJ’s chief of the Organized Crime Section, said there are some legal solutions for deterring the caravan and preventing future masses of potential illegal immigrants from reaching the U.S. border. Ultimately, there needs to be a “political solution” to the immigration crisis, he warned.
“But the legal aspect of that is you could argue that they’re aiding and abetting false statements for immigration purposes,” Trusty said, noting that prosecutors would need to distinguish between “encouraging false entry, as opposed to entries at a point where they’re lawfully turning themselves in seeking asylum.”- READ MORE