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In perhaps the weirdest headline you’ll see today, college football players at Arizona Christian University have been tied to an ongoing scheme to smuggle migrants into the United States
Jason Wolf of The Arizona Republic reports that in 2022 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 as it turns out, Samelu and Faualo were just two of several players tied to the scheme.
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.
Wolf also reports that prosecutors regularly decline to press charges due to “inadequate probable cause” or because the migrants cannot serve as 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.
“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.
Brady Martin, a former backup quarterback at ACU, said that the smuggling was an open secret.
“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.”