Sixteen people were indicted in El Paso on charges of illegal re-entry into the United States and violating a military regulation, days after a federal magistrate ruled the government hadn’t shown probable cause on an allegation that they trespassed on military land.
The indictments, in which an El Paso grand jury found probable cause to sustain a charge of violating a military regulation by trespassing on Defense Department land, essentially overturned two days of rulings May 15-16 by U.S. Magistrate Miguel Torres. The indictments are an indication that the Trump administration will continue to push misdemeanor charges of violating military regulations as part of its strategy to reduce illegal border crossings.
Attorneys for the defendants, indicted May 28, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas issued a news release Monday announcing the misdemeanor indictments, a level of charge that rarely draws such public notice.
The 16 people who appeared before Torres were the first cases to come before a federal judge after the Defense Department issued an order April 30 declaring that 63 miles of border area adjacent to the Rio Grande from the Texas-New Mexico state line to the Fort Hancock Port of Entry was now part of Fort Bliss. The land previously had been under the control of the U.S. office of the International Boundary and Water Commission, a binational agency that regulates the Rio Grande.
Torres ruled that the government hadn’t shown probable cause for the military regulation charge because prosecutors hadn’t shown that conspicuous signage had been posted declaring that border crossers were entering military land called a National Defense Area.
Border Patrol agents who testified in the probable cause hearings said they had been told that signs were posted every 100 feet along the border, but they hadn’t actually seen them and couldn’t say whether the defendants saw the signs before crossing the border.
A magistrate judge in Las Cruces has dismissed more than 100 similar charges that border crossers illegally entered a National Defense Area along the New Mexico-Mexico border. It wasn’t immediately clear if the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico had sought indictments in those cases.
In each of the 16 cases in El Paso, Torres found that the government had established probable cause to support a charge of illegal re-entry into the United States by someone previously removed from the country, a felony. All of those charged remained detained after the hearings.
The new indictments issued in the Western District of Texas include the illegal re-entry charge, which carries a maximum penalty of up to two years in prison. The misdemeanor charge of violating a military regulation has a maximum penalty of up to a year in prison.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The post Federal prosecutors issue indictments against 16 people who previously had military trespassing charges dismissed appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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