Overview

• Justice Department officials elevated JTFA’s mission to include the U.S.-Canada frontier and all maritime borders, adding FBI, DEA and ATF partners and bringing in prosecutors from the Northern District of New York and the District of Vermont.
• A Vermont grand jury indicted Michigan resident Norma Linda Lozano, who allegedly ferried migrants, including children, from Canada into the U.S., with incidents described such as a five‑year‑old riding in the front seat and an eight‑year‑old placed atop luggage in a hatchback.
• In Texas, prosecutors charged four people in a scheme to smuggle unaccompanied children from Mexico, alleging the use of THC‑laced gummies to sedate them and noting one child was hospitalized for marijuana poisoning; two defendants were arrested on Aug. 30 in El Paso.
• Three Guatemalan nationals tied to the Dec. 9, 2021 mass‑casualty tractor‑trailer crash in Chiapas were extradited to the United States to face charges in the Southern District of Texas that carry potential life sentences.
• Officials cited increased smuggling attempts along New York and Vermont corridors and reported JTFA results to date of more than 410 arrests, over 355 U.S. convictions and more than 305 significant prison sentences.