U.S. Border Patrol agents in California arrested an illegal alien previously convicted of raping a child, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Tuesday.
The 46-year-old male, who is a citizen of Mexico, was arrested on Monday afternoon after he illegally entered the United States by Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro sector.
Agents found via record checks that the illegal alien was previously convicted of “rape, sodomy, and oral copulation” with a person under the age of 18, according to a CBP release.
The man’s conviction was in 2007 in Hemet, California, after which he was sentenced to more than nine years in prison. He was later removed from the United States in 2014.
Following his latest arrest, he is being charged as a convicted felon with reentry after deportation. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Since the start of fiscal year 2021 on Oct. 1, 2020, the El Centro sector Border Patrol agents have arrested or removed 17 individuals who were convicted or wanted on sexual offense charges.
Separately, Border Patrol agents in the San Diego sector arrested a child sex offender on Sunday around 10:45 p.m. local time. The man arrested was one of two illegal aliens who were trying to hide in thick brush in the mountains just east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. They were found and arrested by an agent patrolling the area.
Record checks showed that the man is a 35-year-old El Salvadorian national who was convicted in 2009 in Virginia for aggravated sexual battery of a child under 13. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison but in 2014 he was removed to El Salvador, after he had part of his criminal sentence suspended.
Similar to the 46-year-old Mexico citizen, the El Salvadorian man will be charged with felony illegal reentry after deportation. He is being held in federal custody pending prosecution. The other man was sent back to Mexico.
Since the start of fiscal year 2021, San Diego sector Border Patrol agents have arrested 31 sex offenders, a number already higher than fiscal year 2020 when a total of 25 sex offenders were arrested.
The United States is currently experiencing a surge in illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The number of arrests from October 2020 to the end of February 2021 was 396,958, representing a more than 96 percent increase from the same period last year, according to CBP data. In February, the CBP apprehended 100,441 aliens who crossed the southern border illegally.
As for illegal aliens who have evaded capture so far in 2021, Deputy Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz estimated the number to be at “way over 100,000 people.”
President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials have urged migrants to refrain from illegally crossing the border into the United States. Biden in late March defended his policies and characterized the border surge as something that “happens every year,” and is due to “a whole range of things” including earthquakes, floods, lack of food, and gang violence. He also blamed Trump for the situation. White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier in March said, “The last administration left us a dismantled and unworkable system,” referring to the situation at the southern border.
Critics, including Republicans, have said the border crisis was largely exacerbated by Biden’s immigration policies, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) having called the situation a “man-made crisis.”
Cruz in a statement on March 17 contended that Biden’s calls for a “halt in deportations, mass amnesty, and health care benefits for illegal immigrants” in his presidential campaign back in September 2020 had served as a signal to potential illegal aliens that “the border would be wide open” under a Biden presidency.
“And as a result, people came,” Cruz said, later adding, “This crisis is the direct result of President Biden’s radical open borders agenda.”
Since taking office, Biden has reversed a number of border policies from the Trump administration, including pausing border wall construction and announcing the removal of the “Remain in Mexico” policy—which required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while awaiting immigration proceedings.
The Biden administration has also stopped expelling from the country the unaccompanied minors—children who crossed the border illegally without an adult to accompany them. Adults and family units are generally still being expelled from the United States.
Biden on his first day in office proposed a plan to Congress seeking to provide a pathway to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the United States illegally. Last month, Democrats introduced a reform bill—the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021—that closely models Biden’s proposal.
From The Epoch Times
