More than 100 people found in Houston 'stash' house

Police found 115 people presumed to be in the U.S. illegally in a house outside Houston Wednesday living in filthy conditions, a police spokesman said. Authorities believe the house to be part of a human trafficking operation.

Most of the people were dressed in undergarments and were shoeless — presumably to deter their escape. They were living in filthy conditions and were surrounded by trash bags full of old clothing, said John Cannon, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department.

Police found the home during a search for a 24-year-old woman and her two children, aged 5 and 7, who were reported missing by relatives late Tuesday.

Family members alerted police after a planned “coyote drop” at an undisclosed location near Houston fell through, the Houston Chronicle reported. Police received a tip that the three might have been taken to the house.

At the house, police found a “large, large group of people, some sitting on top of one another, very confined spaces,” Cannon said. “They yell out the woman’s name to see if she is in there, and she emerges with the two children. They’re OK.”

Authorities said five men have been arrested. Two men were pulled over after police surveillance saw them leaving the driveway of the home. Officers found handguns and documents that suggested illegal activity, which led police to detain the men and enter the house, Cannon said.

After the people were removed from the house, three men attempted to run away but were detained, Cannon said. Police have not identified the suspects.

Houston Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Greg Palmore told Al Jazeera that police found 99 males, 16 females, including 19 juveniles, in a single-family home with one bathroom and no hot water.

Most of the women said they had been kept there for three or four days, Cannon said. One woman said she had been there for 15 days. All the residents complained of hunger and thirst.

Houston police said the case has been handed over to ICE.

ICE took the people into custody for questioning, Palmore said. Their countries of origin were mainly Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador. Palmore said it’s too early to tell if the house was part of a human trafficking operation, but added that it appeared that way.

Cannon said the house was in an industrial area. The structure's windows were boarded up as is a typical of “stash” house, one used by “coyotes” transporting people into the country illegally.

Houston is located about seven hours from the Mexican border, and is "significant for the highway corridors that make up Houston, I-45, and I-10. With those two traffic corridors you can pan out anywhere in the United States,” Palmore said. “And it’s very easy to assimilate into the communities here.”

 Al Jazeera and the Associated Press