Police, who had received a tip, arrested several people. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, pay smugglers each year to take them across the Mexican border and help them reach locations in the United States. Most are seeking higher paying jobs than they can find at home. In cases of kidnapping, illegal immigrants or their families are forced to pay their abductors in exchange for getting them to their destinations. Typically, professional smugglers who bring undocumented immigrants across the border take them to drophouses or safe houses.
Smugglers get immigrants to provide names and phone numbers of relatives to call to send money.
Only when the money arrives will the immigrants be put on airplanes or buses and sent to their final destinations. At INS regional headquarters in Laguna Nigel, Calif., spokeswoman Sharon Gavin said smugglers horning in on other smugglers' action imperils immigrants and the neighborhoods where drophouses are located.