By Susan Carroll, The Arizona Republic
Federal agents were searching for three men Wednesday who reportedly beat a young Mexican woman, snatched her 14-month-old daughter and fled into the United States near Douglas.
Miguel Escobar Valdez, Mexican consul in Douglas, said the 19-year-old woman from Michoacan, Mexico, had arranged to meet a smuggler along the international fence east of Douglas Tuesday night at about 11 p.m. Irma Alberto Gabriel was carrying her toddler daughter when she was attacked by three men she did not recognize, Escobar said.
“One guy took the baby she was holding in her arms,” Escobar said. “The other two individuals started hitting her and took the couple hundred pesos she had in her wallet.”
The young mother, who had hoped to reunite with her husband in Ohio, ran across the border into the desert after the men, but soon lost sight of them in the darkness. Border Patrol agent found her with a split lower lip, crying hysterically for the baby, Maria Guadalupe Villegas Alberto.
Border Patrol agents started a search and rescue effort after midnight for the men and the baby, but had not found them by Wednesday afternoon.
The mother was treated at Southeastern Arizona Medical Center in Douglas and then transported to a Tucson hospital.
Alberto Gabriel told authorities she met the smuggler, whose name she could not remember, at a motel in Agua Prieta, a popular staging point for illegal crossings into the United States.
Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff’s office, said investigators believe the smuggler was one of the three men involved in the assault and kidnapping.
Capas said investigators are working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find Maria, who weighs about 20 pounds and was wearing a pink sweater and light blue pants with a stripe down the side of the leg.
Russell Ahr, a Phoenix-based spokesman for ICE, said investigators in the Valley have handled a half-dozen smuggling-related child abductions within the last year. Smugglers use immigrants, including children, as “bargaining chips” to get more money from relatives in the United States, Ahr said.
Last week, smugglers threatened to hold a baby hostage until the mother paid an additional $700, but police raided the drop house and the coyotes, as people smugglers are often called, fled the home.
Ahr said the other cases made him optimistic for Maria’s safe return. “None (of the abductions) has led to a situation where any harm was done to the children,” he said.
Anyone with information on Maria’s abduction or location is asked to call authorities at 1-800-232-5378, an ICE anti-smuggling hotline. All callers can remain confidential.