Human smuggling case against migrant van driver heads to trial in Florida

A Mexican national facing up to 20 years in prison for traveling to Florida from Georgia with passengers who entered the country illegally is going to trial on criminal human smuggling charges, after a judge late on Wednesday rejected an argument that the state law behind his arrest is unconstitutional.

The criminal case against Raquel López Aguilar — a father of two from the state of Chiapas living in Tampa and working as a roofer — will be one of the first tests for a state law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis as he seeks to combat illegal immigration.

López Aguilar, 41, was arrested in August for allegedly driving a van on Interstate 75 with six passengers that were all found to have entered the country illegally, according to a police report.

His arrest is part of a broader effort by the DeSantis administration to crack down on immigrants in the country illegally who seek to travel or live in Florida — making López Aguilar’s case just one example of the impact the governor’s policies could have on the hundreds of thousands of migrants who are in the country illegally living in the state and on the organizations and companies that interact with them.

Opponents of the human-smuggling provision have worried the state law, passed last year, could lead to the prosecution of individuals who are driving family members or groups such as churches for transporting immigrants into the state.

López Aguilar’s attorney, paid for by the Mexican government at the request of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, tried to dismiss the human smuggling charges. The defense argued the state law is written too broadly and vaguely, leaving “citizens of ordinary intelligence and law enforcement officers charged with enforcing the law with no hope of understanding what the (state law) prohibits and to whom it applies.” They also argued the state law is preempted by federal immigration law.

A Hernando County circuit judge disagreed with those arguments, saying in part that because the state law did not deal with addressing “removal proceedings or any other aspect of immigration,” the state has the authority to enforce a law targeting individuals who transport immigrants into the state.

Furthermore, the judge disagreed with the defense’s argument that the state law is discriminatory.

“The statute is clear that it does not discriminate; citizen, non-citizen, state resident, or out-of-state resident — all are affected equally under the statute,” Judge Stephen Toner wrote in his ruling.

López Aguilar has been in jail for seven months as he awaits his trial, scheduled for April 8. He was arrested after a Florida Highway Patrol trooper pulled him over, noting that the van had dark window tints and large cracks on the windshield, according to the police report.

When authorities stopped López Aguilar, he was in the driver’s seat, according to Florida Highway Patrol arrest report documents obtained by the Miami Herald. The six passengers, including a 7-year-old, were all Mexican nationals, according to the document.

Catch up on top stories before rush hour

Become a Times subscriber to get our afternoon newsletter, The Rundown

We’ll break down Tampa Bay’s biggest environment, politics, business, education and culture news every weekday.

Loading...

You’re all signed up!

Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.

Explore all your options

Under Florida law, a person can’t transport into Florida “an individual whom the person knows, or reasonably knows, has entered the United States in violation of the law and had not been inspected by the federal government since his or her unlawful entry.”

The law, which took effect last June, strengthened a version of a previous human smuggling law.

López Aguilar is accused of “knowingly and willfully” transporting immigrants who are in the country illegally into the state and is facing four separate third-degree felony human smuggling charges, each of which could be punishable by up to five years in prison. He was also charged with a misdemeanor for driving without a license.

The state determined that López Aguilar had traveled from Georgia because he had several receipts for money transfers in his pocket that indicated he had been there. The vehicle, a 1997 van registered in Georgia and processed as evidence, belonged to a construction firm there, according to the Mexican consul in Orlando. Public records from the neighboring state show the van’s owner also has a roofing company registered to the same address as the vehicle.

But Mexico’s consul has argued that there is no proof that Lopez Aguilar was the driver when he crossed the Georgia state line into Florida.