A Texas oil field worker has been detained in one of Mexico’s most dangerous prisons for nine months after crossing the border in an “honest accident” — while his family pleads for his safe return.
Caden Hawkins, 23, has been locked up on weapons charges at Cereso Estatal No. 3 in Juarez since March 2, when he unknowingly crossed the border in Columbus, New Mexico, while trying to return home to Hallsville after a job, his heartbroken mother, April Thomas, told KLTV.
Thomas said her son’s GPS directed him to the US–Mexico border without him realizing it, and he didn’t understand where he was until it was too late to turn around.
“I am on the phone with Caden, and he starts telling me the speed bumps are so bad in this town he’s in and then the next thing you know he is telling me that he couldn’t turn around. We hear men around him yelling in Spanish,” Thomas said.
The 23-year-old oil field worker filmed the tense exchange on his phone moments before he was hauled away in handcuffs.
His mother later learned he was detained for having a pistol and ammunition with him — a firearm he was legally licensed to carry — and insists it was an “honest accident.”
“My son is not a criminal,” she said, insisting her son “does not deserve this.”
Hawkins’ sister said her brother’s detainment has been “one of the hardest things any of us has ever endured.”
“To hear him on the phone sounding distraught has taken a toll on all of us,” Haley Nicole Hawkins said.
Since his arrest, the family has spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to bring him home and is now begging lawmakers to intervene.
“We need somebody that is more powerful than we are,” Thomas said.
East Texas State Rep. Jay Dean claimed that Hawkins is being used as a “cash asset for a corrupt federal judge in Juarez, Mexico,” and that his “family has been extorted for months.”
Dean claimed Hawkins’ family is being “forced to pay over $1000 a week so Caden can have hot water, toilet paper, and semi-protection from violent inmates.”
“This is absolutely unacceptable and we need to ban together and force our federal government to BRING CADEN HOME,” Dean wrote on Facebook.
Dean — who said he is “determined” to bring Hawkins home by Christmas — joined US Sen. John Cornyn in calling for federal intervention and urging the public to contact government offices, KETK reported.
Lawyers for Hawkins’ family said his nine-month-old appeal may not be reviewed for up to two years and warned he could face a sentence of up to four years.
Cereso Estatal No. 3 is regarded as one of Mexico’s most dangerous prisons, marked by violent riots, overcrowding, gang and inmate-run hierarchies, and repeated security failures.
On New Year’s Day 2023, the prison was rocked by a bloody riot orchestrated by the Los Mexicles gang, killing 10 guards and freeing around 30 inmates, the El Paso Times reported.
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