According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a legal permanent resident in the U.S. was apprehended after reportedly attempting to bring a sedated child into the country using a falsified birth certificate at a border crossing.
On Wednesday, Gloria Lopes Corona, a 24-year-old Mexican national, was arrested while trying to enter the U.S. at the San Luis Port of Entry in Arizona. She used a birth certificate that belonged to another child and claimed to be two years old.
Authorities later identified the child as an unaccompanied minor from Mexico. The boy appeared lethargic and confused, reportedly having taken Melatonin. Investigators from Homeland Security seized items believed to have been used to sedate children.
During questioning, Lopez Corona confessed that she wasn’t the boy’s actual mother and acknowledged the birth certificate was fraudulent. She mentioned that her biological child, who is two years old, resides in Mexico.
Immigration officers managed to locate Reina Cecilia Hernandez Reyes, the real mother of the child in question. Lopez Corona insisted she was pressured into smuggling the boy due to threats against her family and expressed distrust in the Mexican police.
She recounted being directed to a spot where an unidentified individual had placed the child in a car seat. Although offered $1,500 for the journey, she declined the payment.
At one point, the child told the official, “He was given a shit by his mother.”
Reyes acknowledged that she had handed her child over to an unknown woman for smuggling into the U.S. and has since regained custody of her son.
The intent behind smuggling the child was to deliver him to Reyes’s husband in Los Angeles—a man who entered the U.S. illegally three years prior after facing deportation multiple times.
Lopez Corona now faces charges related to alien smuggling following her arrest during a Homeland Security investigation.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, emphasized that Fox News President Donald Trump “protects children and stops traffickers and smugglers.”
“These individuals are putting innocent children at risk and trafficking them into our country,” Tricia McLaughlin stated, highlighting efforts under President Trump and Secretary Noem to safeguard children from exploitation.
