HOUSTON — A Houston-area teacher was arrested in southwest Texas on April 2 and is now facing human smuggling charges, according to the Kinney County Sheriff's Office.
The sheriff's office said Brandan Gracia was being paid to pick up four migrants in the county and then drive them to Houston.
Kinney County officials said incidents like this have become more and more common. They said most of the drivers picking up migrants are coming from Houston.
Gracia told officials he was a teacher in Houston. They said he was found with an ID from Patrick Henry Middle School.
KHOU 11 confirmed that Gracia holds a Texas Educator Certificate, which shows he is certified to teach science to kids in grades 7 through 12.
The Houston Independent School District was not available to confirm Gracia’s teaching status because it is a holiday.
“It’s really tragic that someone can derail the whole course of their life chasing what amounts to a few thousand dollars,” said Kinney County spokesperson Matt Benacci. “I’m a softie, and I feel very sorry for Mister Gracia, but you know, it appears he made a very unfortunate choice.”
Officials said Gracia was found with two men and two women in his car.
Benacci said there has been a growing number of drivers getting caught shuttling migrants to big cities from counties near the border.
He said many of them are from Houston and are paid anywhere from $500 to $10,000 per migrant.
Benacci said he is not sure how much Gracia may have been paid to allegedly drive the migrants to Houston. He said female migrants are many times taken advantage of by traffickers.
“It’s often the case where they’re forced into prostitution or some other kind of illicit trade,” Benacci said. “And Houston is for many reasons a hub of human trafficking.”
Benacci said drivers looking to make some extra money may not understand the role they could be playing in facilitating the trafficker’s crimes.
“It’s one thing to tell yourself, ‘Well I’m just helping people who need help live a better life,’ so on and so forth,” Benacci said. “Well, maybe you are, or maybe you’re taking them out of the frying pan straight into the fire.”
Benacci said American drivers are sometimes lured with money to shuttle the migrants but are actually getting set up by traffickers.
He said traffickers can use the drivers as distractions for law enforcement, who arrest them, allowing traffickers to move narcotics in the background.
“If you’re a driver or you’re thinking of being a driver and you’re asking, ‘Well, am I the distraction or not?’ If you’re asking the question, you are. They’re expecting you to get caught, you’re there to be put in handcuffs and the person who hired you knows it,” Benacci said.