SANTA TERESA, N.M. – This week, U.S. Border Patrol Agents arrested two convicted sex offenders attempting to enter the United States illegally in southern New Mexico. El Paso Sector agents see no decrease in the number of groups entering illegally into the U.S. as it enters the month of May.
Early May 2, U.S. Border Patrol Agents arrested a group of four illegal aliens after they entered three miles east of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry. Agents encountered the four subjects after tracking footprints from the international border into the desert. The four males included two citizens of Guatemala and two from China.
Border Patrol Agents processed the group at the Santa Teresa Border Patrol when record checks indicated that one subject, a 44-year-old Guatemalan, had been arrested in May 2001 by the Arvada Police Department in Colorado. A criminal background check utilizing biometric databases found that the subject had been charged with “first degree sexual assault” and was deported from the U.S. after serving a two-year sentence at the Colorado Department of Corrections.
The subject was booked into to the Luna County Detention Facility pending criminal prosecution for illegal re-entry.
Wednesday shortly after midnight, agents working in the boot heel of New Mexico, detained a previously deported 36-year-old Guatemalan man. After querying his fingerprints, Border Patrol Agents discovered the man had extensive criminal history.
His criminal history revealed convictions for “lewd acts with a child under the age of 14” in Santa Clarita, California, for which he was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. The subject was deported from the United States in 2016.
The subject will remain in custody pending criminal and immigration prosecution for his prior order of removal and criminally prosecuted for illegal re-entry.
This is an ongoing situation that Border Patrol Agents face in southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas: hundreds of parents and children are being encountered by agents after having faced a dangerous trek north while convicted criminals attempt to avoid detection by circumventing agents who are occupied detaining large family groups.