EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — An 18-year-old El Pasoan and his family are demanding answers after they say he was wrongly profiled and arrested at the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry while he made his weekly commute to El Paso.
His family says he was falsely extradited to Virginia for a crime he did not commit.
Jonathan and his family are a mixed-status household. Jonathan and his mom are U.S. citizens, but they live in Ciudad Juarez with his father who is in the process of applying for his residency.
Because Jonathan’s father has a pending asylum case to live in the United States, the family requested anonymity but they were willing to share their story with KTSM, and allowed for his first name to be used.
Jonathan and his mother travel weekly to El Paso so that he can attend Bel Air High School and she can go to work.
But on Sept. 11, they said Jonathan was detained and arrested by Customs and Border Protection officers at the PDN bridge on charges of possession and distribution of fentanyl in the state of Virginia.
“My son was profiled as a criminal, because they had an arrest order for a person that had the same first and last name as my son,” said Jonathan’s mother during an interview with KTSM.
Jonathan’s mother added that he was booked into the El Paso County Detention Facility in Downtown El Paso for two weeks, before he was extradited to face charges in Virginia, on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
Jonathan joined the interview with KTSM via cellphone, since he is still in Virginia.
“It’s been really difficult. They tried to blame me for a crime I did not commit,” Jonathan said. “I never felt that they thoroughly investigated to ensure I was the person they were searching for. I’ve never been to Virginia before. I don’t know anyone here. I’m all alone”
Jonathan said he had to spend a night in jail in Virginia before he had a court hearing, where they determined that they had the wrong person in custody. He said he was told the person with the arrest warrant had the same age and first and last name, but a different birth date.
He has been released from jail and is waiting to fly back to El Paso on scheduled flight on Tuesday morning, Oct. 1.
Jonathan’s mother said he began having issues being detained by U.S. customs at ports of entry in May of this year, shortly after he was issued his Texas I.D.
She said, however, that she was informed the arrest warrant dates back to November 2023.
Jonathan said that during the times he was detained leading up to the most recent incident, he would spend hours being held by CBP officers.
He said he would have his fingerprints scanned, only to be released hours later because police would not arrive to take him in.
Jonathan and his family are now left wondering: Who did not do their due diligence and arrive at the conclusion that he was the suspect?
“So we don’t know who was the one that made the mistake — if it was Virginia, El Paso or CBP. It’s just that if they’re going to do something like that, make sure you have the profile of the person they’re looking for, because it’s not fair that somebody that does not have the fault for it, is going to be incriminated for something they did not do,” his mother said.
Jonathan said when he was detained in El Paso, lawyers told him there was not much they could do for him because the charges he faced were in Virginia.
“They told me they couldn’t do anything because I was identical to the person they were looking for. We had the same hair and eye color, weight and height, even my complexion, that I was identical to the person they were looking for,” Jonathan said.
Jonathan added that he was encouraged by lawyers in El Paso to plead guilty to the charges, so he would only have to spend 90 days in jail. Otherwise, the state of Virginia would have 20 days to pick him up and then extradite him to face charges there.
“I told them I was not going to plead guilty because I was innocent, so I opted to wait,” Jonathan said.
Jonathan said that when he arrived in Virginia, he was told he would be in jail for three weeks leading to his court appearance where he would face the charges, before the attorney assigned to him stepped in to advocate for his case.
Jonathan has received help from an organization in Virginia that helped him find a hotel to stay in and to buy food and clothing while he is waiting to return to El Paso.
The organization, which also wanted to remain anonymous, also helped him find a flight back.
KTSM reached out to CBP for comment, but they explained that they cannot discuss individual cases, and instead referred us to their website.
The CBP’s website states the following:
“CBP Officers use diverse factors to refer individuals for targeted examinations and there are instances when our best judgments prove to be unfounded.”
Their website also indicates that CBP officers rely on an “Interagency Border Inspection System” to “determine which individuals to target for secondary examination.”
“Should CBP determine that an error exists within our system of records, corrective measures will be taken,” the website said.
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