Women charged with hiding undocumented immigrants in home

Federal agents have arrested two local women, charging that they helped to smuggle several undocumented immigrants across the border and hid them inside their Harlingen home.

Court records released this week show that Maria Eugenia Reyes-Reyes and Ada Ruth Avila-Landaverde were arrested July 27 after federal agents searched their Harlingen home, the address of which was redacted from federal court records.

Once inside the house, records state, federal agents found seven immigrants from Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Mexico hiding there.

Court records show that both Reyes-Reyes and Avila-Landaverde appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald G. Morgan in Brownsville on Monday on charges that the women knowingly transported and harbored undocumented aliens.

The judge ordered both women be held in the custody of U.S. Marshals without bond.

If convicted, the two women could face up to five years in federal prison.

Among the undocumented immigrants inside the home, agents discovered two young Mexican nationals, Maria Magdelena Ramos-Gil and Carmelo Galvan-Diaz, both of whom are now listed as material witnesses in the case against the two Harlingen women.

Although records indicate a Harlingen address for the two women, both Reyes-Reyes and Avila-Landaverde are listed as having immigration detainers, meaning that even if the two were to be bailed from federal custody the women would still be transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Both women waived preliminary and detention hearings scheduled in federal court Thursday. Both are still in federal custody.