Youths caught bringing drugs across the Mexican border to Arizona county face adult charges
Drug cartels frequently use children to bring drugs from Mexico to the United States, and prosecutors in an Arizona border town now charge those juveniles caught as adults.
The Cochise County Attorney’s Office refers to the project as “Operation Immediate Consequences,” the Los Angeles Times reports. It began last year, and according to the article the office has charged 51 juveniles with drug trafficking. The youngest was 14, and all but one juvenile has pleaded guilty in exchange for 18-month prison sentences. Two out of the group attended a local high school, while the rest lived in Mexico.
Some reportedly accepted the deals without legal representation. The county would not tell the Los Angeles Times how many defendants were offered public defenders.
If someone is charged as a juvenile with drug trafficking in Arizona, he or she often receives probation.
Prior to the launch of Operation Immediate Consequences, youths caught carrying drugs over the border would be sent back, after the government confiscated their contraband. That’s still the case in other Arizona counties, according to the article, because they don’t have the resources to house or prosecute the children.
If there aren’t any legal consequences, the youths often repeat the crime, says Brian McIntyre, the Cochise County attorney. The county also hopes it will remove an incentive for drug cartels to exploit children as their drug mules.
One defendant cited by the Times was arrested and charged as an adult when he was 16. He does have an attorney, Xochitl Orozco, who is trying to get the case moved to juvenile court. The youth, who according to the article dropped out of school in junior high, earned $47 a week working in a Mexico factory. He reportedly admitted to climbing a border wall near Douglas, Arizona, and on the United States side picked up two burlap bags of marijuana, which he was supposed to deliver to a waiting car in exchange for $400.
In arguments to the court, Orozco noted that the teen’s brain is not yet fully developed, and a promise of $400, when you you earn less than that in a month, would be hard to process for many teenagers.
“They are taking this boy, treating him as an adult, having him sign papers without a lawyer present when he is an underage, unsophisticated Mexican citizen,” she said in court.
