A caravan migrant from Honduras who went viral last year for complaining about the food she had been given along her journey to the U.S. border has been arrested for attacking her roommate with the butt of a knife handle in Dallas, Texas, county jail records show.
Mirian Zelaya Gómez, 38, and her sister, Mirna Zelaya Gómez, 33, were arrested in Dallas on March 27 and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Mirna has an additional charge of assault causing bodily injury.
According to the police affidavit, Mirna attacked their roommate Alba Escobar Andrade with a chair and a piece of a bed frame, then Mirian hit Escobar Andrade’s face with the butt of a knife handle.
(Courtesy of Dallas County Jail.)
Both sisters are illegal aliens and have an immigration detainer placed on them. Each are being held on a $10,000 bond, according to Dallas County Jail records.
Mirian, nicknamed “Lady Frijoles” or Bean Lady, caused an uproar in Mexico after she complained about being given beans and tortillas, a staple food in the country, to eat throughout her journey.
“I know no one has to give anyone food, right? They don’t have to do it, and the truth is well the food that they’re giving here is fatal…Look, just look at what they’re giving,” she said to the German network DW in a November 2018 interview at the migrant camp in Tijuana.
“Look, just ground beans, as if they were feeding pigs. And the truth is, there is really no other option, we have to eat that food because if we don’t, we’ll die of hunger.”
Mirian later apologized for her comments in an interview with the same network, saying she was being bullied in the migrant camp because of it and had to relocate.
Mirian arrived in Tijuana last year with the first large migrant caravan and apparently entered the United States shortly after her viral interview. She then moved to Dallas to live with her sister Mirna, Telemundo reported.
According to Univision, both sisters were issued a notice to appear before a federal immigration judge before being released into the United States, but could not be found by immigration authorties until their arrest on March 27, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Univision reported.
Mirian first came into contact with U.S. immigration authorities on November 20 at the San Ysidro Port of Entry between San Diego and Tijuana. On November 25, she was given a notice to appear then released into the United States.
Her sister Mirna was also released into the U.S. in Feb. 2016 near Rio Grande City, Texas. Several months later, she was ordered to leave the country by a federal immigration judge but could not be located, ICE said, according to the news outlet.
Residents at the apartment complex where the sisters lived, according to the police report, told Telemundo reporters the sisters were rowdy neighbors.
“They drank a lot. They had very loud music until 3 in the morning. I had to wait outside in my wheelchair to go to sleep so I could get in,” said Jorg Vauer, who said he lives in the apartment complex where the sisters were arrested.
