A legal permanent U.S. resident was arrested Wednesday after allegedly attempting to smuggle a child with drugs into the country through a forged birth certificate, according to immigration and customs enforcement.
Gloria Lopez-Corona, 24, from Mexico, attempted to enter the San Luis entrance port in Arizona with a five-year-old boy, where she issued a birth certificate that was based on age for another child because the birth certificate was a two-year-old.
The child was determined to be an unaccompanied child in calm Mexico. The child was given melatonin gummy, drowsy and disorientated. The Homeland Security Investigation seized items believed to be used for drug use.
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Gloria Lopez-Corona, 24, faces allegations of alien smuggling. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Lopez-Corona later admitted that she was not the mother of the child and that her birth certificate was fake. Lopez-Corona said she is a two-year-old mother in Mexico. Immigration officials found Reyna Cecilia Hernandez Reyes, the mother of the five-year-old.
According to the New York Post, Lopez-Corona claims she was forced to smuggle her children into the United States by someone who threatened her family and she did not contact the police because "she doesn't trust Mexican police." She said she was told to drive to the car where a child was placed in the car seat in her back seat by an unnamed person. The woman said she received $1,500 in shipping but refused the money.
The child was determined to be an unaccompanied child in calm Mexico. (Brian Cox/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by Getty Images)
According to the socket, the child once told agents that "his mother gave him the gummy."
Mexican citizen Reyes admitted to sending her child to an unknown woman, who returned the child to the United States, and was sent back to him, accused of being linked to attempted smuggling.
According to the New York Post, the plan is to bring the child to Reyes’ husband in Los Angeles. The man was smuggled into the country three years ago. Federal agents later discovered that he had been expelled three times before his last entry.
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The child's mother admits to handing him over to an unknown woman to smuggle him to the United States (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
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Lopez-Corona, arrested by a homeland security investigation, faces allegations of alien smuggling.
"This has caused individuals to lose an innocent child and traffic them to our country," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Fox News. "Under President Trump and Secretary Norm, the Department of Homeland Security will protect children and block traffickers and smugglers who trafficked children."
Fox News's Bill Melugin contributed to the report.