PHOENIX – Immigration officers reportedly rescued an infant from drop house in Phoenix earlier this week.
Vincent Picard with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said agents investigating a suspected drop house near 12th Street and Dunlap Avenue Monday knocked on a door and were given consent to search the home.
Inside, agents apparently found two Mexican citizens, a mother and her juvenile daughter, along with an unaccompanied infant.
Picard said the girl was approximately 1-month-old from Mexico and was not related to the mother and daughter.
ICE reportedly identified the suspected human smuggler believed to be operating the drop house, but he refused to identify the infant's family.
ICE contacted Arizona's Child Protective Services to take custody of the child while agents worked with the Mexican Consulate to indentify the baby's relatives.
Picard said the parents were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol Monday trying to illegally cross the border through the desert and were returned to Nogales, Mexico.
Consulate officials located the girl's parents in Mexico and are now working with CPS to reunite the family, according to Picard.
"It is not unusual for parents to arrange for their young children to be smuggled separately while they attempt to enter the United States through the desert," said Matt Allen, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Arizona. "Fortunately, in this instance, the child was found safe. But parents who contract with human smugglers should remember they are delivering their children into the hands of criminals, criminals who've been all too willing in the past to put a child's welfare at stake for their own personal gain."
Picard said the mother and her daughter identified at the drop house have been repatriated to Mexico.
