Immigration and border security has been one of the explosive topics leading up this 2024 presidential election.
Maybe that’s what inspired Jason Wolf of The Arizona Republic’s shocking report that in 2022 Arizona Christian University football players, Malakai Robert Samuelu and teammate Meamoni “Junior” Faualo borrowed a car from a teammate to drive to the border to smuggle migrants into the country.
Prosecutors declined to press charges, but after an 18-month investigation it was discovered that Samelu and Faualo were just two of several players tied to a much larger scheme.
ACU Students Recruited On SnapChat To Drive Migrants Over Border
A former player told Wolf that he was recruited on Snapchat to drive migrants from border towns to metro Phoenix.
Wolf reports he was paid $1,000 per person, which makes it more clear why any college student would jump at the opportunity.
Wolf also reports that prosecutors offen decline to press charges when it comes to illegal border crossings due to “inadequate probable cause” or because the migrants aren’t considered reliable witnesses.
Migrant Smuggling Is A Rampant Issue For ACU College Football Program
But more so, he points out the lack of oversight from the school’s football coaches.
What about the coaches? Wolf accused them of a lack of oversight.
“As another fall sports season kicks off, the findings also raise serious questions about the vetting and compensation of high school and small college coaches, considering their tremendous influence; suggest parents and community leaders must warn teens against transporting migrants; and help to weave a cautionary tale about the value of transparency, demonstrating how silence breeds suspicion and misinformation and blunts accountability,” Wolf writes.
This of course is not an issue just in Arizona. Former President Trump made news during the debate when he falsely accused Haitian immigrants of stealing and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said.
Fearmongering as a political tool at its finest, but an example of these situations are also used to create negative opinions about foreigners.
Migrant Smuggling Was An Open Secret
A former ACU quarterback, Brady Martin, said that the smuggling was an open secret among the players.
“I loved the state of Arizona. But I learned really quick what type of a school it was,” Martin told Wolf. “Because the kid that was touring me asked me if I wanted to go pick up Mexicans at the border and bring them back for $750 a pop.”
“(Former backup QB) JJ (Mcelhenny) was my host. I laughed. I thought he was playing with me,” Martin said.
“And then they were like, ‘He’s not playing, though.’”
According to reports, Mcelhenny denied the allegations, but Wolf reports that “three ACU football players told The Republic that Mcelhenny distributed human smuggling assignments to teammates.”
“Four or five immigrants would jump in the car,” Martin said he was told, “and then they’d drive them back to like an AutoZone or a Walmart or whatever back in Glendale. They’d get picked up and they’d get handed the cash right then and there.”
Martin said he warned his teammates that being involved in such activity meant they were “asking to go to jail.”
Related:
Arizona Christian is an NAIA program that’s 0-1 on the season, dropping its opener against Fort Lewis College, 17-12 loss to Fort Lewis College.
