Gonzalez-Flores

I. BACKGROUND

Gonzalez was convicted on one count of bringing in illegal aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(i). The follow- ing facts emerged at trial:

In late May 2003, a group of twenty-three Mexican nation- als set out on foot from Mexico across the desert into the United States. Three members of the group were detained by a border patrol agent on a road near Interstate 8 in Arizona; these individuals told the agent that there were approximately twenty other members of their group still in the desert. A search and rescue operation was initiated, and border patrol agents found nineteen members of the group in the desert. Two teenage girls from the group were suffering from severe heat exhaustion and respiratory problems and were airlifted to a hospital. Another agent, responding to a report of an illegal alien, encountered and detained Gonzalez at a barn off I-8 near Yuma, Arizona.

Three members of the group, Miguel Gonzalez-Flores (no relation to defendant), Eduardo Salinas-Zagal, and Everardo Salinas-Zagal (Eduardo’s brother), were detained as material witnesses and deposed on videotape two weeks after the cross- ing.1 Gonzalez’s lawyer cross-examined the…