Federal officials arrested two undocumented immigrants in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a 4-year-old boy from Guatemala, they announced Wednesday.

Marleni Garcia-Velasquez called the West Palm Beach police Oct. 21 and told them smugglers she had hired to bring her son into the United States threatened to harm him unless she came up with ,000. They held the boy in Mesa, Ariz., according to a police report.

The police called in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrested Marcelino Ramirez-Velasquez, 34, of Guatemala, and Jose Luis Torres-Pais-Paez, 25, of Mexico, They’re each facing one count of kidnapping, a class two dangerous felony and dangerous crime against children charge and one count of theft by extortion, a class four felony. Both defendants were indicted on Oct. 31 by a Maricopa County, Ariz., grand jury.

The boy’s trip started four months ago, Garcia-Velasquez told police, when the alleged smugglers picked him up at his uncle’s home in Guatemala. It ended after investigators used a cell phone picture of the boy in Spider Man pajamas and recorded phone conversations to track him to a hotel. The boy was found in good health, said Armando Garcia, assistant special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Phoenix. He was put in foster care until a DNA test can prove the familial relationship, he said. If the test comes out positive, the family will be reunited in about a week, Garcia said.

The boy’s mother, an undocumented immigrant, was detained by immigration officials, then released with an order to appear before an immigration judge. She faces deportation to Guatemala.http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flbsmuggle1106sbnov06,0,860344.story
Why isn’t the mother being charged with child endangerment ?

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