A US court has sentenced a 20-year-old Ghanaian soldier to prison after he admitted to importing undocumented Mexican immigrants.
According to information acquired, the defendant Emmanuel Oppong Agyare is accused of taking part in the scheme as one of the troops donning clothes and performing the act.
He was sentenced along with Ralph Gregory Saint-Joie, 19, one of his conspirators, who was given prison terms of 21 and 13 months, respectively.
Oppong Agyare was a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard, whereas Saint-Joie was a soldier on active duty.
They both had jobs at Texas' Fort Hood.
According to accounts, after stopping the pair at a border checkpoint near Hebbronville, Texas, US authorities discovered two unauthorized immigrants in the trunk of the vehicle.
According to the Justice Department, the two were hired to transport the immigrants 240 miles from McAllen, Texas, a border town, to San Antonio.
They each received $100 for gas money when they first picked up the two Mexican citizens at the border in June 2021, but it is unknown how much they were paid after the job was finished.
Oppong Agyare and Saint-Joie were instructed to wear their uniforms throughout the smuggling in order to avoid being questioned by the authorities.
The recruiter told the pair that "the same method succeeded in earlier smuggling instances," according to court documents.
Together with Denerio Williams, 22, and Ivory Palmer, 21, Isaiah Gore, 20, who admitted guilt to counts of people smuggling in December 2021, employed the two service members. Gore was given a 30-month sentence, while Williams was given a 24-month term. Palmer is awaiting his retribution.
All three of the soldiers were from Texas.
Soldiers who are imprisoned are typically released from their duties.
There has been a sizable military presence on the US-Mexico border for more than a year.
Approximately 5,000 members of the Texas National Guard are involved in Governor Greg Abbott's problematic Operation Lone Star mission, which has recently been covertly scaled back. These soldiers make up the majority of those troops.
