LAS CRUCES, NM--Agents at the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint on Interstate 25 near the New Mexico-Texas border held a press conference on Saturday to announce the results of a routine vehicle search. At approximately 9:48 that morning, with the assistance of a search dog, agents recovered 3.6 ounces of Pepperidge Farm® Goldfish® crackers, which have an approximate street value of 63 cents.
The checkpoint stops several hundred vehicles per day, most of them only briefly. In a normal stop, the agents ask simple questions such as where the passengers are headed, and whether they are U.S. citizens. But Agent Domingo Valenzuela, the agent who made the stop, said that something stuck out to him on that morning.
"It's very typical that we see a minivan coming through with car seats and young children in them. Most of them are families going to visit people in Albuquerque or somewhere in Colorado. I asked the driver where they were headed, and he calmly replied that they were going to visit his sister-in-law for the weekend. That seemed fine, and I was about to let them through when something caught my attention."
Valenzuela, 27, has been with the Border Patrol since 2015 and has completed a few thousand vehicle stops by his estimate. "There was something different about this minivan," he says. "As I peered through the window at their 2-year-old, I just knew something else was going on." The toddler, whose name is being withheld, "looked like he had been throwing a fit not too long ago," said Valenzuela. "His eyes were a little raw, and his face was blushed, but the car's air conditioner had been running, so it seemed pretty clear that that kid had been crying. The question that kept running through my mind was, 'What calmed this kid down so recently?'"
He asked the driver to please pull into a search area very briefly, and then Valenzuela brought over a specially trained canine. As soon as we opened the side door of that van, Agent Scraps, 4, signaled that he'd found something.
"What's really impressive about this find is the sheer volume of the product that the alleged smugglers tried to wedge into every crevice of that little boy's car seat." There were crumbs and orange powder everywhere, and even a few whole fish, which is the form of the substance that is typically preferred by buyers. "That characteristic smiling fish is how you know its genuine," explains Agent Franklin Thornberry, 44, the supervisor of the investigation.
"This is a proud day for the Agency," said Thornberry, a 19-year veteran of the organization. "It's times like these that make it all worth it. We are glad that we could get this habit-forming substance off the streets. Now we can get that toddler some help with his addiction and, God-willing, he may have a future ahead of him still."
The official statement from the Border Patrol Agency explains that the boy in question is "in a safe and secure facility, and is being well cared for." The spokesperson answered questions about the parents' whereabouts and the consequences they will likely face, saying "Remember, they are innocent until proven guilty, but it does seem likely that they knowingly exposed this child to high levels of crunchiness, real-cheese flavor, and just a hint of salt. We expect that the charges will reflect this, but there are many interventions for folks like this that do not involve prison time."
When asked what would happen to the crackers and crumbs themselves, the spokesperson simply said that they had "been disposed of in the appropriate manner."