The US Attorney’s Office has secured an additional 60 convictions from people who pled guilty to trespassing in El Paso County’s new National Defense Area.
The pleas recorded in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas between May 20 and May 22 add to the 60 convictions obtained until May 19.
Federal prosecutors are awaiting the outcome of another 133 charges filed this week against defendants who allegedly trespassed on the 60-foot-wide military buffer zone along the border.
The El Paso NDA, as well as a second one established along the Mexico-New Mexico border, allows federal prosecutors to charge migrants with not only illegal entry or re-entry into the country but also trespassing on what have essentially become extensions of Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
Some of the people indicted in El Paso were named in a statement issued Friday by the United States Attorney’s Office.
They include Gustavo Ramos Solorzano and Enrique Arenas Garcia, both Mexicans.
On May 14, the United States Border Patrol captured Ramos two miles west of the Paso del Norte port of entry. Just four days prior, the United States had deported him due to a criminal conviction for unauthorized reentry. Ramos has been deported from the United States four times.
On May 15, authorities apprehended Arenas two miles west of the Ysleta Port of Entry. He was taken from the United States on May 7 via the San Ysidro Port of Entry in California. The United States has deported Arenas three times, and he has voluntarily left the country twice.
They are concerned about the military’s expanded engagement at the border and fear that human rights violations against migrants will occur. Border Report investigated a handful of court records alleging NDA violations and discovered that Border Patrol agents are conducting the arrests so far.
