Today16 illegal immigrants arrested, police say
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Article RatingTrooper Jeff Kolodzi of the Carlisle barracks set a new personal record Thursday: 16 illegal immigrants in one vehicle.
“Most of the time when we get them, it’s one, two, three at a time,” said Kolodzi Friday morning. “My old record was 11.”
So when Kolodzi performed a routine traffic stop on the Dodge Ram van about 10 a.m. in South Middleton Township, he wasn’t expecting anything too far out of the ordinary.
“This was just a regular van,” the trooper said. But then he discovered that inside the eight-passenger van were 16 illegal immigrants from Mexico, four of whom were underneath the back seat.
Fifteen of the immigrants were male, Kolodzi said, and two of them were only 14 years old. Kolodzi found it particularly disturbing that the teenagers didn’t have any family connections with the other passengers.
“I have a teenage daughter,” he said, noting that he has a hard time imagining what it would be like to be on one’s own at 14 in a country where everyone speaks a different language.
“I feel a little bit better knowing that the kids are safe and not being used for work or anything like that,” he said. “There are a lot of perverts out there.”
The oldest of the immigrants appeared to be about 30, Kolodzi said, and he wasn’t aware of any family relationships between them.
It is not uncommon to discover illegal immigrants on Route 81, Kolodzi said, and when that happens he always keeps an eye out for a drug connection.
“From the same groups they’re getting paid to smuggle people as drugs -- it’s a money-making business,” he said, explaining that illegal immigrants are sometimes used as “mules” to transport drugs.
Kolodzi said he did not find any drug connection with this particular group of immigrants. They had apparently sneaked into the country around Nogales, Ariz., he said, and when stopped near mile marker 44, they said they were headed to Reading for a construction job. They did not provide any further details, he said.
The group was taken to York County Prison for processing, Kolodzi said, adding that he expected immigration officials to look into the matter quickly because of the number of immigrants and the two juveniles.
