Sex Offender, Fugitive, Gang Member Arrests Continue Along U.S. Southwest Border

Border Patrol agents along the southwest continue to arrest migrants with criminal histories including sex offenders, fugitives, and members of violent gangs.

In the Rio Grande Valley, agents arrested three gang members and two previously deported sex offenders. They also found a fugitive wanted in Utah for a sex crime, according to information obtained from Border Patrol officials.

McAllen Station agents apprehended a citizen of the Dominican Republic after he illegally crossed the border from Mexico on December 13. During a criminal background check the agents discovered that a Massachusetts court convicted and sentenced the man to two years in prison for strong-arm rape in 2017. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers deported the man following the completion of his sentence.

That same day, Harlingen Station agents encountered a group of five Salvadoran migrants. While processing the group, agents conducted a digital background investigation and found one of the migrants, a 34-year-old male, received a conviction from a Suffolk County, New York court in 2005. The court sentenced the man to 10 years probation for sexual abuse of a child under the age of 11. Another court sentenced him that same year to 30 days of incarceration for a forged instrument. A federal court sentenced the man to 14 months in prison for unlawful re-entry after removal as a convicted sex offender.

Around this same time frame, McAllen Station agents arrested a group of 65 migrants. Hiding in the group was a female migrant identified as a member of the Salvadoran Mara-Salvatrucha gang (MS-13). The agents also found an 18th Street gang member and a 36-year-old Mexican national wanted in Utah for the alleged aggravated sexual abuse of a child.

Elsewhere in Texas, Big Bend Sector Chief Patrol Agent Sean McGoffin tweeted a report regarding the apprehension of five migrants at the Highway 118 immigration checkpoint. A background check revealed one of the migrants, a Mexican national, received a conviction from a Colorado court for murder. The court sentenced the man to 20 years in prison.

El Paso Sector agents took another previously deported child predator off the streets with the arrest of a migrant re-entering the United States. A Louisiana court convicted the migrant for felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile.

Further west, Yuma Sector agents identified two felons who illegally crossed the border this week. The agents identified one man as 31-year-old Joel Campos-Velis, a suspected Salvadoran MS-13 gang member who received a conviction for assault. They identified the second as 31-year-old Gabriel Hernandez-Perrez, a Mexican national who received a conviction for attempted aggravated sexual battery.

Breitbart Texas reports extensively on the arrests by Border Patrol agents of previously deported sex offenders and other criminal aliens. The number of arrests of deported sex offenders, felons, and gang members continues to spike in multiple sectors along the U.S.-Mexico Border, Breitbart reported earlier this year.