Feds Apprehend 3 Sex Offenders near Southwestern Border in One Day

Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers teamed up to stop three sex offenders from making their way into the U.S. from Mexico.

Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Highway 95 immigration checkpoint interviewed the driver of a vehicle who was attempting to pass through the inspection station on the morning of November 3. The driver, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen from Long Beach, California, claimed to be a ride-share driver. The agents interviewed the four passengers in the vehicle and determined they were all Mexican nationals who were illegally present in the U.S.,  according to Yuma Sector officials.

The agents arrested the driver and all four of the Mexican nationals. During a biometric background investigation, the agents learned that a California court convicted one of the men in 2005 for having sex with a minor who was under the age of 16. That migrant will likely be prosecuted for aggravated illegal re-entry after removal as a sex offender.

Later that evening, agents assigned to the El Centro Sector observed a man running north from the international border fence near the Calexico Port of Entry. The agents made contact with the man and learned that he had just illegally crossed the border from Mexico. The agents took the man into custody and transported him to the station for processing and a background check.

Criminal database records checked by the agents revealed that the man, 30-year-old Mexican national Gildardo Gonzalez-Santiago, received a misdemeanor rape conviction in 2008 from a court in Orange County, New York, El Centro Sector officials reported. The court sentenced the Mexican man to time served (two months in jail) and required that he register as a sex offender until 2028. Following his conviction, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers deported the man to his home country in October 2008.

Gonzalez-Santiago is also expected to face new federal felony charges for illegal re-entry after removal as a sex offender, officials stated.

Also on November 3, CBP officers assigned to the Anzalduas International Bridge discovered that an Austin, Texas, man who was attempting to enter the U.S. from Reynosa, Mexico, was wanted on an active warrant for sexual assault of a child, CBP officials in the Rio Grande Valley Sector stated.

46-year-old Rogelio Juarez approached the international boundary in a 2016 Chevy Silverado pickup truck. During an initial interview, officers determined the man to be a possible match to an arrest warrant from Travis County, Austin, Texas. The officer conducted a biometric background investigation and confirmed the man as the fugitive wanted by the Austin Police Department for an alleged second-degree felony charge of sexual assault of a child, officials stated.

The warrant states that Juarez is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old female family member in April 2016. CBP officers turned the man over to the Mission, Texas, Police Department who will hold him pending transfer to Travis County.