Border Patrol agents in Yuma arrested a 26-year-old Mexican national, who was part of a program to protect young immigrants from deportation, on suspicion of human smuggling Monday.
The Salinas, California resident was a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Border Patrol said in a news release Tuesday. The agency did not provide the man's name.
On Monday afternoon, Yuma Sector agents found footprints of four people they suspected had crossed the U.S-Mexico border illegally near the Colorado River, the agency said in the news release. Agents saw four people enter a Ford F-150 parked in a nearby citrus grove.
After stopping the truck, the driver was identified as the 26-year-old DACA recipient, the agency said. The four other occupants of the truck were Mexican nationals illegally present in the United States.
About 28,000 DACA recipients live in Arizona, according to statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
