Placer County, California sheriff’s deputies contend they found an illegal immigrant from Mexico tending to nearly 300 marijuana plants on undeveloped property unbeknownst to the landowner.
Mexican national Leobardo Diaz, 43, allegedly told deputies he had been living and working at the site off Spring Garden Road in Foresthill, where the property owner discovered numerous marijuana plants and called the sheriff’s office, KCRA reports.
Deputies raided the squatter garden on Thursday and discovered a total of 281 “healthy and budding” plants, which they destroyed. The plants were between four feet and seven feet tall, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Officers also discovered fertilizers and other growing chemicals on site.
Diaz was arrested and booked into Placer County Jail in North Auburn for suspicion of cultivation of marijuana and trespassing, though he was later released, the Auburn Journal reports.
The grow operation is the latest in a long line of crimes committed by illegal immigrants that have undoubtedly fueled public support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call to crack down on illegal immigration.
The episodes also provide examples of what Trump called “criminals” and “rapists” coming from Mexico because of lax border enforcement.
In the roughly 15 months since Trump announced his candidacy and highlighted the immigration problem, illegal immigrants have carjacked a 91-year-old woman, strangled and raped a New Jersey woman, groped women at a nail salon, bludgeoned a woman with a hammer, crashed vehicles while drinking, and committed numerous other crimes, The American Mirror reports.
Many of those who killed and raped their victims had been repeatedly deported in the past but simply returned from Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection report a total of 369,411 people have been apprehended attempting to cross the southwest border through August of fiscal year 2016. That number eclipsed the total for 2015 in July with two months left in the fiscal year, according to the agency’s website.
The blog Numbers USA points out that Border Protection statistics released in August show the biggest recent increase in illegal immigration is among unaccompanied children and “family units.”
According to the site:
The number of apprehensions in July alone increased almost 15% from 28,388 in FY15 to 33,737 this year. The report shows that the increase can be contributed to the surge of unaccompanied children (UAC) and family units crossing the border. 7,500 family units and 5,068 UACs crossed the border in July, up from 6,626 family units and 4,789 UACs in June. The increase during the summer months is troubling since the hot weather usually slows down the flow of border crossers.
Many families and children are crossing the border illegally to take advantage of the Obama administration’s lax enforcement policies such as the reinstated catch-and-release policy and declining deportations. A federal judge also ruled last year that illegal alien children must be quickly processed and released, due to the Flores-agreement signed in 1997.
A deputy assistant attorney, Leon Fresco, told a federal judge in June that this encourages families and children to cross the border saying, “When people now know that when I come as a family unit, I won’t be apprehended and detained.”
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