DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients were arrested in two separate incidents of human smuggling operations in California over the course of two days last week.

The first, a 22-year-old Mexican DACA recipient of Riverside County, was questioned on January 25 after the arrest of two illegal aliens. The man allegedly admitted to border patrol agents that he was on scouting duty as part of a human smuggling crew. The DACA beneficiary allegedly had been monitoring border patrol activities and relaying them to other members of the crew to facilitate their human smuggling activities.

This was not, apparently, the man’s first alleged participation in human smuggling, as he had allegedly participated in multiple alien smuggling operations. As of Tuesday, he was in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security for removal proceedings, having violated the terms of his DACA status.

A second suspect, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen, was later also arrested in connection with the alleged smuggling scheme.

In a separate incident on January 24, three illegal aliens in their early 20s were arrested. Agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were first alerted to a suspected smuggling attempt through a tip from private citizens near Torrey Pines State Beach.

Agents discovered a vehicle with the three illegal aliens inside. The driver was a 20-year-old DACA recipient whose status had lapsed. His 22-year-old cousin, a Mexican national also illegally in the country, but not a DACA recipient, was in the passenger seat. The two allegedly admitted to agents that they were involved in human smuggling in the area.

The third man in the car was a 21-year-old Mexican national being smuggled by the two cousins, a CBP public relations officer clarified for Breitbart News on Tuesday. All three were taken into custody.

An estimated 1.8 million illegal aliens who entered the country as minors would be eligible for amnesty under a newly released White House immigration reform framework that would offer citizenship in exchange for some border security funding and changes to current immigration law.

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