A couple charged with importing illegal farmworkers into Colorado and then collecting a “smuggling fee” from their pay was sentenced today by a federal judge and will be deported.
Moises Rodriguez and his wife, Maria, of Hudson, were sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham to time already served in jail – 11 months each – and ordered into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for deportation proceedings.
Their son, Javier Rodriguez, was sentenced to 3 years of probation, with the first six months under home detention, and was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine, U.S. attorney’s office spokesman Jeff Dorschner said.
The defendants were indicted by a federal grand jury last October on charges of smuggling and harboring illegal aliens. The three pleaded guilty in May.
Federal authorities accused the Rodriguez family of operating an illegal labor camp in Hudson, 30 miles northeast of Denver. They would smuggle workers illegally across the U.S.-Mexico border and drive them to Hudson, where they were housed in run-down barracks.
“Once in Hudson, the illegal aliens would be required to work for Moises and his wife … at various local farms,” Dorschner said. “The aliens would typically pay a $1,100 to $1,300 ‘smuggling fee’ which was taken out of their pay until the entire amount was paid in full.”
As part of a plea agreement, the defendants also forfeit their 9-acre property in Hudson as well as more than $128,000 in cash seized during a raid there and money in a bank account.
“Colorado is not a way station for misery,” U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said today in a statement. “The fact that people were having to work off their smuggling debt in less-than-ideal living and working conditions makes this crime reprehensible.”
In October, when federal agents raided the fenced barracks compound at Hudson, they found automatic weapons and cocaine in a trailer where a supervisor stayed, court records show.
This is one of several recent cases around the country involving smuggled foreign workers who labored under financial duress, owing money to those who sneaked them into the United States.
Staff writer Bruce Finley contributed reporting to this story.
