WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice announced indictments Thursday of three illegal immigrants who sought to smuggle more than a dozen children into the US by “exploiting the loopholes created by the [Biden] administration.”
The Guatemalan nationals “took part in a wide-ranging conspiracy” that included submitting bogus sponsor applications in order to take custody of unaccompanied migrant kids, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters.
Two of the defendants, Maritbza Azucena Cahuec Coc, 38, and her brother Carlos Agustin Cahuec Coc, 33, enlisted the third defendant, Gladys Marina Caal Chen, 20, in the conspiracy after she was fraudulently sponsored and smuggled into the country.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (right) and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. AP Photo/Manuel Balce CenetaBetween December 2020 and October 2023, Maritza and Carlos Cahuec Coc scammed the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) by applying to have the kids stay with them.
A. Tysen Duva, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division, said Maritza Cahuec Coc used false birth certificates, Guatemalan consular ID cards and photos of purported relatives’ IDs to deceive authorities.
Pages within the ledgers containing lists of names. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio“This was a business,” Duva said, noting that federal agents executing a search warrant at a Cleveland, Ohio home last month found Chen living there with other adults and at least four kids.
“Paychecks addressed and made payable to others including at least one of the [unaccompanied minors] sponsored by Maritza Cahuec Coc were deposited into Maritza Cahuec Coc’s and a co-conspirator’s bank accounts,” according to the DOJ.
Maritza Cahuec Coc was charged with conspiring to defraud the US, harboring aliens and aggravated identity theft among other charges. She faces up to 17 years in prison upon conviction.
Carlos Cahuec Coc was charged with conspiring to bring aliens into the US illegally for financial gain and facus up to 10 years in prison.
Chen was charged with making false statements to the feds when applying to be a child migrant sponsor and faces up to five years in prison.
The Biden administration lost track of more than 300,000 migrant children who entered the country between 2021 and 2024, a Department of Homeland Security watchdog report previously found.
Maritza Azucena Cahuec Coc is holding a Guatemalan national ID card bearing the name of an alias. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio“Oftentimes, the children were abused, assaulted and certainly exploited,” Blanche said. “In some cases, individuals would sponsor multiple children, which required them to lie on to government personnel and on government forms claiming they were close relatives when in fact they were not.”
“They would use fake or stolen identities and make other false claims during the application process in order to obtain custody of the children,” he added.
The DOJ has since identified more than 15,500 so-called “super-sponsor” cases similar to those of Maritza and Carlos Cahuec Coc.
One involved a 27-year-old man, also from Guatemala, who was sentenced Thursday for fraudulently claiming to be the sponsor of a 14-year-old girl whom he went on to repeatedly sexually assault.
That migrant, Juan Tiul Xi, earned eight years in state prison, with a 26-month federal prison sentence to follow consecutively.
“These two cases — while only two — help explain how what was going on is really the stuff of nightmares,” Blanche said.
