EXCLUSIVE: Moment Texas sheriff TRICKS migrants into getting arrested – after nabbing their driver and using his GPS to track them crossing into the US

This is the moment a Texas sheriff tricked migrants into being arrested after they grabbed their driver and used his GPS to track them as they crossed into the US illegally.

In an exclusive video obtained by DailyMail.com, Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland – a retired border patrol agent – can be heard signaling to migrants that they can get out into desert brush and load into a van to be trafficked .

‘Come now; come on,’ Cleveland can be heard saying in Spanish. “Hurry, hurry, get in. Get in. Everyone, get in.”

Out of nowhere, Mexicans who entered the country illegally come out of the pitch-black desert and climb into the bed of the truck, the sheriff told DailyMail.com.

‘I am the smuggler; everything is fine,’ Cleveland assures the migrants who stare at him as they follow orders.

Of the seven migrants boarding the waiting truck, one man becomes violent and begins to resist, prompting a US Border Patrol agent to show himself.

A driver is pictured on the left next to two migrants picked up by the agents

The migrants are seen piling into the back of the truck after the sheriff calls out to them in the dark

The agent appears with a light on his helmet and subdues the man as the sheriff can be heard saying: ‘If you move, I’ll shoot. Do you understand?’

The real smuggler who was expecting the migrants was arrested moments before the migrant was arrested near Sanderson, Texas on Thursday.

The Mexican national was driving the truck on a remote road, Cleveland explained, adding he stopped the driver because his license plate search showed he was not from the area.

“We get drivers from all over, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth,” the law enforcement officer said. “If someone from Houston is in Sanderson, it’s because they’re here to drive illegal aliens somewhere.”

The migrants are seen helping each other in the bed of the vehicle before being apprehended

The footage showed them running out of the woods towards the vehicle as the sheriff called out

Drivers come from as far away as California, Alabama and the Midwest to make quick cash by picking up illegal immigrants who have just crossed the border.

The illegal immigrants walk for a day or two until they reach a meeting point. From there, the drivers are sent GPS coordinates to the pickup location. The drivers go to the meeting point and usually honk or signal for the waiting border-crossers to get into the car.

If the driver is successful, they pick up the migrants and transport them to major cities in Texas or even beyond, Cleveland said.

In last week’s incident, when the driver was pulled over, Cleveland discovered the man was an illegal immigrant from the state of Jalisco.

The sheriff turned the driver over to Border Patrol agents and got permission from the driver to look through his phone, the sheriff said.

The driver’s car was also seized by the agents, with him along with the migrants he allegedly helped smuggle across the border.

Law enforcement officers were able to find the location of the pick-up point and drove there to arrest the migrants.

“It’s something we do as often as we can,” Cleveland said of the police’s work.

‘We want to find the smuggler, but we also want to find the migrants. Even though most of them only come here to work, we have to apply our laws.’

Of the Mexicans arrested Thursday, Cleveland said one woman who was among them pleaded to be released.

‘She was crying and said she had just come to the US to work. She said she had a baby at home in Mexico and was just trying to take care of it.’

Most of the migrants illegally crossing the US southern border near Sanderson are from Mexico and are trying to evade authorities.

It’s a far cry from the chaotic scenes at the border of asylum-seeking migrants from countries like Venezuela and Cuba surrendering to border agents in an attempt to gain political asylum in America.

In the past two years, the remote town where Cleveland serves as top cop has seen a nearly 400 percent increase in human trafficking, he said.