EL PASO, Texas – U.S. Border Patrol Agents assigned to the El Paso Station arrested a man last week who had served time on murder charges in Houston, Texas.
Agents working near the Bridge of the Americas (BOTA) watched three subjects running west of BOTA, then into Chamizal Park. An agent video surveillance team picked them up on camera walking through the park. Agents approached them and they quickly bolted away.
Two subjects were caught after a brief foot pursuit, while the remaining subject ran south back to Mexico. The two men in custody were transported to the Paso Del Norte Texas Processing Center (PDT) for further processing.
Agents ran queries on them through national immigration and criminal databases, and it was determined that one of the men, identified as 42-year-old Jose Santos Diaz-Hernandez from El Salvador, was revealed to have an immigration and criminal history.
Records showed that Jose Santos Diaz-Hernandez had been arrested in Houston in 2002 by the Houston Police Department on charges of “Murder”. Diaz-Hernandez was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but he spent a total of seven years prior to his release and deportation in August-2008. Diaz Hernandez is again facing prosecution for “Reinstatement of Prior Order of Removal”, and was booked into the El Paso County Detention Facility.
During the same time period, Agents also encountered a convicted sex offender when a 41-year old Mexican National was apprehended.
That arrest was the result of camera operators seeing a group of people entering the United States illegally, west of the Bridge of the Americas. When agents responded to intercept the group, one male subject broke away from the group and ran west. Agents quickly caught up to him and made the arrest. The man was identified as Magdaleno Elizalde-Alonso, from Mexico.
After being interviewed by Agents, Elizalde was transported to a Border Patrol station for processing. He was fingerprinted and his biometric information was entered into several immigration and criminal databases. In just a few minutes, agents found that he had been previously deported, and had been convicted on charges including “Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault” and “Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child” in Chicago, Illinois. Those prior convictions led to a six-year prison term after his arrest by officers from the Chicago Police Department in November, 1998.
Elizalde will be turned over to the El Paso County Detention Facility pending criminal prosecution for a reinstatement of prior order-of-removal.
These arrests are indicative of the vigilance and determination that is carried out on a daily basis by U.S. Border Patrol Agents in the furtherance of stopping dangerous criminals from entering area communities.