National

(NEW YORK) — Ameshia Cross, 35, spent the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic worried about how she would pay off her nearly $90,000 in student loan debt once the freeze on federal student loan payments ended.

Now, she said she will have $20,000 less to pay off starting in January, after President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a long-awaited plan to cancel federal student debt for a subset of Americans.

Cross qualifies for $20,000 in loan forgiveness under Biden’s plan as a recipient of a Pell Grant — scholarships reserved for students with the highest financial need — and someone making less than $125,000 per year.

She said that while she is extremely grateful for having a portion of her debt canceled, she remains anxious about how she will pay off the rest of her loans when payments resume in January.

Cross — who worked two jobs and cared for her three siblings while in college — said the $20,000 that will be forgiven is less than the interest that has accrued on her loans over the past decade.

“Money only goes so far and it’s not like your salary increases or the money you have incoming increases at the rate of cost of living,” Cross, assistant director of communications for The Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on student equity, told “Good Morning America.” “Hopefully we will be in a different place come January, but right now the costs of groceries, the cost of basic necessities is just really, really high, and I think that makes it extremely difficult.”

As a Black woman, Cross is part of a population that stands to benefit the most from Biden’s student debt relief plan.

Black women carry a disproportionate burden of student debt. Overall, women hold nearly two-thirds of the nearly $2 trillion outstanding student debt in the U.S., and Black women are the most likely of any gender group to have student loans, with around 1 in 4 Black women holding student debt, according to data from the Census Bureau and the American Association of University Women.

Black women graduate college with an average of nearly $38,000 in student debt, according to the American Association of University Women, a number that grows at a faster rate over time than for other populations, data shows. Just over a decade after starting college, Black women, on average, owe 13% more than they borrowed, while white men, on average, have paid off 44% of their debt, according to The Education Trust.

“When I became a borrower, I didn’t think about the repayment, I thought about degree completion, and then the economic mobility that would come,” said Brittani Williams, a senior policy analyst in higher education at The Education Trust. “I figured I would graduate, get a job and pay those student loans back, and the reality for me was that I graduated, got a job and went back to school a couple of times.”

Williams, a mom of three, said payments on the tens of thousands of dollars of loan debt she still owes are on pause as she pursues a doctorate degree, which she expects to finish in 2024.

Though she too qualifies for $20,000 in loan forgiveness under Biden’s plan, Williams said she sees it as “just a start” and is already worried about restarting payments in the future.

“I’ve already begun to create in my head a scenario for repayment and what does that look like,” she said. “I’m enrolled in public service loan forgiveness and I work for an eligible nonprofit but what does that mean for my forgiveness personally moving forward, and what does that mean for the planning of these next nearly two academic years that I have?”

Under Biden’s plan, people who went to school on a Pell Grant can qualify for up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness, while other student loan borrowers who didn’t go to school on a Pell Grant will still have loans forgiven up to $10,000.

Both forgiveness options are for people who earn less than $125,000 per year, or $250,000 as a household, in either the 2020 or 2021 tax year.

When Biden announced the plan on Wednesday, he spoke of a generation of people “saddled with unsustainable debt” that impacts whether they can buy homes or start families, among other life choices.

That debt is especially harmful to Black women, who face both racial and gender discrimination on top of everything else. Even after entering the workforce, where they might ostensibly earn the money to pay off their student loans, Black women are paid less than their white male counterparts, earning just 63 cents for every dollar earned by white men on average, according to the Labor Department.

Gloria Blackwell, CEO of the American Association of University Woman, said Black women face the “perfect storm” of both a racial wealth gap and gender pay gap, which she said combine to keep them further behind their peers both before and during college, and then exponentially so afterward, when they graduate with debt.

“When you are a Black woman and you have this burden of student loans, it impacts every aspect of your life,” said Blackwell. “It impacts whether you can pay for basic living expenses, whether you can afford transportation or even the rent in order to have a decent place to live, let alone save for a house or be able to start a family or take care of your family. It’s a burden on Black women on whether they can save for retirement or afford rent or be able to move to a better neighborhood.”

Kristin McGuire, 40, said the past two decades of her life have been structured around her responsibility to pay back the more than $20,000 she borrowed to attend a four-year public college in California, an amount she said has increased to over $50,000 due to interest.

Now, as she pays for her oldest daughter to attend college, also in California, McGuire, the executive director of Young Invincibles, a youth advocacy organization, said she is preparing to resume payments on her loans in January, when the pause ends.

McGuire said she did not qualify for loan forgiveness under Biden’s plan, which she said she hoped would not include means testing.

“The president’s wording has been no one who makes a high income will be eligible for this relief, but $125,000 doesn’t really weigh in for regional differences or inflation,” said McGuire. “So because of that, a lot of coastal borrowers or folks who live on the coast or in major metropolitan areas will be excluded from this.”

Still, McGuire said she is “very, very grateful” that Biden took action because she knows so many people who are impacted by student debt for whom the loan forgiveness will help.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say every single person I know who went to college and is a Black person is overwhelmed with the burden of student debt,” she said. “And it’s all for the very same reasons, that we were all first-generation, we were all low-income and the cost of us attending college was more expensive because we had zero expected family contribution, which means we had to borrow the money.”

“That impacted everyone in my social circle in a different way, so these wins are more of a communal win for me,” she added. “I don’t have to view it as a personal win or loss.”

McGuire’s sentiment is one echoed by Corazon Eaton, of Columbus, Ohio, who paid off her remaining loan balance of more than $130,000 within the past year, but said she is still very happy with Biden’s loan forgiveness plan.

“I went into [paying off my student loans] knowing that it could potentially down the road end up getting forgiven or a portion of it getting forgiven [for others], and being at peace with that,” said Eaton. “I think the changes are going to propel and impact a lot of people.”

Still, Eaton, McGuire and the other women “GMA” spoke with all said they believe Biden’s action on student loan forgiveness should be only a first step and that more needs to be done to help Black women, including capping the rising cost of higher education and introducing greater debt cancellation options.

They also said they are proud that it was Black women who led the call — and who will continue to do so — for changes to student debt policy.

On the 2020 campaign trail, Biden pledged to approve $10,000 in student loan forgiveness for every federal borrower.

“Black women came out and Black women voted and Black women said, ‘This is what we need,'” said Blackwell. “The call is to be more deeply responsive to the very specifically articulated needs that would have an impact on improving the economic security of Black women, and those calls are not going to stop, and that advocacy is not going to stop.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(HOUSTON) — Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.

One of the survivors of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was honored at Tuesday’s MLB game between the Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins.

Mayah Zamora got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Minute Maid Park, an opportunity set up by the Correa Family Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Twins shortstop Carlos Correa, formerly of the Astros. Both the Astros and the Twins teamed up to give Mayah, a softball player herself, an unforgettable experience ahead of their first matchup in a three-game series that concludes Thursday night.

Mayah donned a bright orange Astros jersey and a navy blue and orange Astros cap for the occasion and posed for photos with players from both teams, including Correa, and the Astros’ mascot, Orbit, a green alien. Mayah’s family, her parents Christina and Ruben Zamora, as well as her two brothers and some extended family members were also by her side at the special event.

It’s not the first time the Astros have honored Uvalde families following the Robb Elementary school shooting, which cut short the lives of 19 children and two teachers. In July, the team traveled to Uvalde, nearly 280 miles west of Houston, to hold events and support the local community.

They also hosted families of the shooting victims earlier this month at Minute Maid Park.

Mayah was released from University Hospital in San Antonio on July 29. According to a press release from the Correa Family Foundation, the 10-year-old had to undergo over 20 surgeries during her 66-day stay.

While she was at the hospital, Mayah’s softball team launched a lemonade stand to raise at least $4,000 to help fund their teammate’s medical costs.

The Correa Family Foundation also announced Tuesday that it had raised funds to provide Mayah and her family a new home. The foundation’s president, Dr. Ricardo “Ricky” Flores, confirmed to “GMA” that after the school shooting, Mayah had learned she and her family lived just blocks away from the shooter and she felt uneasy returning home.

The Zamora family is in the process of finding a new place to relocate and the foundation plans on making sure their next home is fully furnished and comfortable for Mayah.

“We are thrilled to have so many friends and collaborators who are willing to come together and help us provide this gift to Mayah and her family,” Correa said in a statement. “I could never begin to imagine everything she has gone through, and we feel that this is one thing we could do to try to alleviate some of her pain. I’m thankful to both teams for being a part of this effort.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Five more states are set to severely restrict abortion this week, adding to the growing number of laws that have taken effect since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Three states — Idaho, Tennessee and Texas — had trigger laws go into effect Thursday after being required to wait 30 days following the reversal of Roe before the bans could be enacted.

Additionally, North Dakota has a trigger law in place to make abortion illegal that may go into effect Friday and Oklahoma has a law with higher penalties for providers going into effect at the end of the week.

The states with trigger laws had effectively banned abortion since the Supreme Court reversed Roe but the new laws go a step further.

Previously, Tennessee had banned abortions after fetal cardiac activity could be detected, which is about six weeks’ gestation. But the new law makes performing abortions a felony punishable by three to 15 years in prison.

There are only exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy would result in serious bodily injury. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Meanwhile, in Texas, abortions were prohibited in nearly all circumstances, including rape and incest, following the Supreme Court’s decision. There are only exceptions if the mother’s life or health is in danger.

Abortions providers can incur penalties of no less than $100,000 and may lose their professional license for performing the procedure.

Similarly, in Idaho, prior to the law, abortions had been banned after six weeks. The new law makes it a felony to perform an abortion in almost all circumstances.

However, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday against part of the ban after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit saying the ban violated a federal law guaranteeing access to emergency medical care at Medicare-funded hospitals.

“It’s not about the bygone constitutional right to an abortion,” Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the Federal District Court in Idaho wrote. “The court is called upon to address a far more modest issue — whether Idaho’s criminal abortion statute conflicts with a small but important corner of federal legislation. It does.”

North Dakota had a near-total abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest or if the life of the mother is in danger, which was temporarily blocked in court last month after the state’s sole abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic located in Fargo, sued.

A hearing Friday will decide whether the injunction will be extended while the case proceeds through court or if it will go into effect.

During this time, the Red River Women’s Clinic has moved its abortion services across state lines to Moorhead, Minnesota, about five minutes away from Fargo.

“Regardless of whether it goes into effect, or the 2023 North Dakota legislature is going to pass even something more restrictive, yes, we’re here and we’re providing services,” Tammi Kromenaker, director of Red River Women’s Clinic, told ABC News. “Access to abortion has essentially not changed for patients who have to travel, you know, to us, but it’s the principle of the thing, knowing that abortion is illegal in their state.”

She said a week ago she spoke to a patient in North Dakota who thought she wouldn’t even be able to access services.

“I spoke to a patient from North Dakota who said, ‘Oh, my God, did I miss it? Did I miss my chance?’ were her literal words,” Kromenaker said. “And I said, ‘No, we are here. We’re moving to Moorhead; we’ll see you there.’ And she just was so relieved because she literally thought she missed the opportunity to have an abortion.”

In addition to patients thinking that they can’t access services provided by the clinic, there are physical barriers too.

“The Fargo clinic is literally five minutes away from the Moorhead clinic, but for some patients, they had to drive three, four or five hours one way just to get to Fargo,” Kromenaker said. ‘That’s already a really big challenge to many patients who have to come from the western part of the state. You know, take time off from work, pay for gas, arrange child care.”

She added, “We live in a part of the country where winter is very challenging for travel. I remember a time in this last winter when there was such a bad snowstorm that every Interstate in the state was closed down. The patients literally could not get here.”

Additionally, Oklahoma was already enforcing laws banning abortion, but the latest ban adds further penalties.

Senate Bill 612, signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt makes performing abortion a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $100,000.

The only exception under the law is if the mother’s life is in danger.

ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Executives with the social media company Meta announced Thursday that they recently removed 480 Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages, and groups associated with the Proud Boys, for violating the platforms’ ban on the far-right extremist group.

The Proud Boys organization was banned by Facebook and Instagram in 2018. Meta is the parent company of both platforms.

Since the ban, Meta representatives say they have taken down 750 assets associated with the Proud Boys, including accounts, pages, groups, and events.

Many of the pages Meta recently removed represented so-called “front groups” that hid their affiliation with the Proud Boys, according to the company. They would “appear benign,” a Meta spokesperson told ABC News — but they were in fact “attempting to direct people off platform to facilitate discussion, recruitment, and organizing” for the extremist group.

“The change in adversarial tactics makes it clear this group is aware that we’re tracking them and enforcing against them,” the spokesperson said.

“While there’s no silver bullet here, our approach is impacting these dangerous organisations, and we can see adversaries trying harder to hide their affiliation & change tactics,” Meta Counterterrorism Policy Lead Dina Hussein posted on Twitter. “We’ll continue to stay vigilant and share our findings.”

The social media giant used a tactic they call “strategic network disruption” to remove an entire network at once, company officials said.

It’s “an important tool in our work to keep our platforms and communities safe — and counter malicious groups like the Proud Boys when they attempt to abuse our platforms to cause offline harm and violence,” the spokesperson told ABC News.

The tool allows Meta to study how groups attempt to bypass the company’s detection systems, the spokesperson said.

Meta Vice President of Content Policy Monika Bickert told reporters Thursday that the company “will continue to refine our targeted approach to adversarial threats, as well as our scaled enforcement.”

The takedown of Proud Boys content represents just a tiny fraction of the company’s recent enforcement efforts, according to company officials. In the second quarter of 2022, Meta removed 2.3 million pieces of Facebook content related to organized hate, and 449,000 on Instagram — the majority of which was removed before users reported it, the company said.

In June, the Justice Department charged Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four other members of the group with seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, alleging that they coordinated efforts to disrupt the peaceful transition of power.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The Columbus teachers union has reached a “conceptual agreement” with its school board after three days of picketing.

The Columbus Board of Education and the Columbus Education Association did not disclose terms of the deal.

The CEA began its strike after a vote on Sunday, just days away from the district’s first day of school on Wednesday.

Teachers began picketing outside over a dozen of the district’s schools on Monday morning. The union said it would gather outside schools from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day until a deal is reached.

“This deal would not have been possible without the unwavering support of parents, community members, organized labor, and local businesses in Columbus,” the union said in a statement on Thursday morning.

“While the details cannot yet be disclosed, the contract recognizes the board’s commitment to improving our student outcomes, the essential work of the CEA members, and strengthening our learning environments,” Board President Jennifer Adair said in a statement Thursday.

Over 4,000 teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors, psychologists and other education professionals will meet to vote on the new contract over the weekend. Following the union’s ratification, the school board is scheduled to vote on the agreement and in-school classes would resume on Monday, both the board and CEA said on Thursday.

The Columbus Education Association, with 4,000 members, reached a 94% majority on the vote to strike on Sunday.

“It is with a full understanding of the sacrifices that students, parents, and teachers will make together to win the schools Columbus Students Deserve that CEA members overwhelmingly rejected the Board’s last, best and final offer tonight and voted to strike,” Columbus Education Association spokesperson Regina Fuentes said in a statement on Sunday.

The Columbus Board of Education called the decision to strike “incredibly disappointing.”

Fuentes said Sunday the board has “tried desperately” to make the compromise about teacher salary, teacher professional development and teacher leaves.

“Let me be clear,” Fuentes said. “This strike is about our students who deserve a commitment to modern schools with heating and air conditioning, smaller class sizes, and a well-rounded curriculum that includes art, music and P.E.”

Jennifer Adair, Columbus Board of Education President, said in a statement on Sunday the board’s offer “put children first and prioritized their education and their growth.”

Adair said the board offered a generous compensation package for teachers and responded to the concerns raised by the teacher’s union during the negotiations process.

The union and board last met in a mediated discussion on Aug. 18, where the board offered guaranteed raises of 3% annually for three years and $2,000 per CEA member in retention and recruitment bonuses.

According to the board, by the end of the contract, a teacher with a current average salary of $74,000 will earn more than $91,000.

The board’s last offer also stated that it committed funds to install air conditioning in every school, with the exception of one that already has central air in about 50% of the building and is slated to be replaced by a new school in a proposed facilities master plan, the board said.

The 2022-2023 school year began Wednesday with the teachers on strike and students back to school virtually with substitute teachers.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said in a statement Sunday it was important to get students back in the classroom.

Ginther said the past few years have “underscored the value of our teachers, the resiliency of our kids and the need for Columbus City Schools to position itself for the future.”

MORE: Severe staffing crisis in Sacramento schools leads teachers, staff to go on strike
“A responsible solution is within reach, but only

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Despite efforts by major Western nations to combat climate change, the frequency of heatwaves is expected to increase, according to a study released Thursday.

By 2100, over a billion people living in tropical and subtropical regions will annually experience temperatures that exceed dangerous heat index levels, the metric that measures heat exposure in human beings, according to the report in the Communications Earth & Environment journal.

The study found that people living in sub-Saharan Africa, India and the Arabian Peninsula will be exposed to dangerous heat index levels for most days of the year.

According to the National Weather Service, anything between 103 degrees and 124 degrees Fahrenheit is considered part of the dangerous heat index, while indexes 125 degrees Fahrenheit or higher are considered extremely dangerous.

Extreme heat can cause health issues, from fatigue to life-threatening problems such as heat strokes.

The Paris Climate Agreement, the U.N.-sponsored accord to help slow the effects of climate change, has a goal to stop the global temperature from reaching 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Even if the goal is met, it’s still not enough to prevent areas of the tropics and subtropics from experiencing dangerous heat levels, according to the report.

“The climate science community, for quite a while, has understood that the Paris agreement’s goal is going to be very difficult to achieve based on the warming that’s already [happened],” Lucas Zeppetello, Ph.D., an earth science fellow at Harvard University and one of the authors of the study, told ABC News.

If countries manage to meet the goal, crossing the dangerous heat index threshold will be up to 10 times more common by 2100 in the U.S., Western Europe, China and Japan, while it could double in the tropics, resulting in more than one billion of people experiencing up to 124-degree temperatures by 2100, according to the study.

Tropical and sub-tropical areas will be affected the most due to their location, Zeppetello said.

Zeppetello doesn’t think humanity is past the point of no return, as measures can be taken to address the problem, but warned that things would get worse without action.

“The difference between the fifth percentile, which is a world where we get climate emissions under control, is just vastly different from a world in which we don’t do that,” he said.

According to the report, there’s a 0.1% chance of limiting the global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, with the mean temperature headed toward 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

“It’s extremely frightening to think what would happen if 30 to 40 days a year were exceeding the extremely dangerous threshold,” Zeppetello said in a statement. “These are frightening scenarios that we still have the capacity to prevent. This study shows you the abyss, but it also shows you that we have some agency to prevent these scenarios from happening.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Officials have identified a set of human remains that surfaced earlier this year in Lake Mead, as the reservoir deals with a historic drought.

The remains, found May 7 at Callville Bay, on the Nevada side of the lake, are one of several that have been uncovered in the lake since May 1, when human remains were found in a barrel.

The Clark County coroner identified the remains as Thomas Erndt, who is believed to have drowned over two decades ago.

County officials said the remains were identified through investigative information, DNA analysis and reports of the original incident.

Erndt, a 42-year-old from Las Vegas, reportedly drowned on Aug. 2, 2002, although officials said Wednesday that the official cause and manner of death are undetermined.

The Las Vegas Review Journal published a death notice on Aug. 8, 2002, that said Erndt jumped from a boat, was missing and presumed drowned, according to an article from the newspaper Wednesday.

The remains, described by officials as “skeletal,” were found by two sisters, Lindsey and Lynette Melvin, who said they were paddleboarding on the lake because the water was too shallow to go snorkeling.

The pair told Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV-TV that they found the remains when they stopped to explore a sand bar that they said had been underwater before the drought lowered water levels in the lake.

The Melvins said they initially thought the skeletal remains were from a big horn sheep. However, once they saw a human jawbone with teeth still attached, they reported it to the National Park Service.

“We just really hope that the family of that person finally gets answers and hope their soul is laid to rest peacefully,” Lynette Melvin told KTNV in May.

Authorities have uncovered human remains in Lake Mead five times since May. The first set, found in a barrel on May 1, had a gunshot wound and is being investigated as a homicide, officials said. The remains belonged to someone who died in the mid-1970s to early ‘80s based on his clothing and footwear, police said.

Following the discovery of Erndt’s remains on May 7, officials uncovered partial remains on July 25 near Swim Beach on the Nevada side of the lake’s west end, according to a statement from the National Park Service. A second set of partial remains was discovered in the same area on Aug. 7.

Officials are still working to determine if these remains are related.

The latest discovery of remains was on Aug. 15, found again at Swim Beach.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Torrential rain has pounded Mississippi, sparking flooding and forcing evacuations from an assisted living home and a day care.

Dozens of seniors were evacuated Wednesday from the Peach Tree Village assisted living facility in Brandon, Mississippi, just outside of Jackson, after fast-moving waters rose halfway up the doors, officials said. Firefighters pulled residents to safety by using ropes to cross the waist-deep waters.

Several towns saw 5 to 10 inches of rainfall on Wednesday. Jackson set a new daily record with 5.05 inches.

Parts of Louisiana and Mississippi are expected to get hit with more rain on Thursday, but it won’t be as widespread as Wednesday’s deluge.

A flood watch remains in effect Thursday from eastern Texas to the western tip of the Florida panhandle.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Tennessee’s “trigger” law banning abortions went into effect Thursday, making providing abortions a felony in the state.

The Tennessee near-total abortion ban, which was enacted in 2019, criminalizes performing or attempting to perform an abortion, only making exceptions for cases where it is necessary to prevent death or serious and permanent bodily injury to the mother, according to the law.

Trigger laws are written to go into effect after an event occurs, in this case the law was written to go into effect 30 days after a Supreme Court ruling that overturns Roe v. Wade, overturning federal protections for abortion rights, in whole or in part. While the Supreme Court released its opinions in June, the formal judgement was issued by the court in July.

In a letter to the Tennessee Code Commission last month, the state’s attorney general, Herbert Slatery III, announced the effective date of the law, called the Human Life Protection Act, is Aug. 25.

Under the law, performing or attempting to perform an abortion is a Class C felony.

For an abortion to be legal under the law’s exception, it must be performed or attempted by a licensed physician, the physician must determine the abortion was necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of the pregnant woman and the abortion must provide the best opportunity for the fetus to survive, unless that threatens the life of the pregnant woman or could cause serious injury, according to the law.

Under the ban, abortions cannot be authorized based on a “claim or diagnosis” relating to mental health, including claims that the woman would “engage in conduct that would result in her death or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function,” according to the law.

The law does not criminalize women or pregnant people seeking an abortion.

Tennessee’s heartbeat law was already in effect, as of June 28, banning all abortions after embryonic cardiac activity is detected, which generally occurs around six weeks, before many women or pregnant people know they are pregnant.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LOS ANGELES) — A California man has pleaded guilty to importing wild animals into the country, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Jose Manuel Perez, 30, smuggled more than 1,700 wild animals, including 60 reptiles, worth $739,000 into the U.S. and was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border in February. Officials found reptiles hidden in his clothing in small bags, prosecutors said.

When he was caught crossing into the U.S., federal agents said he had about 60 reptiles on him — including some in his pants.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of smuggling goods into the country and one count of wild trafficking, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Perez, who also went by the name Julio Rodriguez, used social media to arrange and smuggle animals into the U.S. between January 2016 and February 2022, federal prosecutors said.

The wildlife, which came from Mexico and Hong Kong, included Yucatan box turtles, baby crocodiles, Mexican box turtles and beaded lizards, federal prosecutors said, and he didn’t declare them through U.S. Customs or obtain the required permits through the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Perez worked with others in his smuggling operation, according to federal prosecutors. His sister, Stephany Perez, 26, was allegedly involved and is scheduled to go on trial in February, prosecutors said.

Jose Manuel Perez faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each count of smuggling and up to five years in prison for wildlife trafficking, according to federal prosecutors.

His attorney did not immediately provide a comment to ABC News.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.