The Department of Justice said Tuesday that during Operation Take Back America, U.S. attorneys for six border districts in the southwestern U.S. charged almost 1,000 illegal immigrants with crimes related to immigration during the first week of April.
Arizona, Central California, Southern California, New Mexico, Southern Texas, and Western Texas are some of the areas that are involved.
204 illegal immigrants were charged by the District of Arizona. Of these, 83 were charged with illegal return and 107 were charged with illegal entry. Ivan Mauricio Hernandez-Mosqueda and 14 other people were also charged with bringing people into and out of the area illegally.
A Mexican man named Hernandez Mosqueda was given 46 months in jail for bringing more than 100 illegal immigrants into the U.S., according to the DOJ. He also taught some of them how to “claim asylum under false pretences” when they got here.
In 97 cases, the Southern District of California charged people with illegally bringing in people or moving illegal aliens for money, bribery of a public official, illegal reentry, and illegal removal of drugs.
Francisco Anguiano Rios, a Mexican citizen, is one of the illegal immigrants being charged. He tried to cross the border at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry with 209 packages holding 547 pounds of cocaine.
In the Central District of California, 24 people were charged with reentering the U.S. after being deported. This included criminals who had been convicted of crimes before they were deported.
99 people were charged by the District of New Mexico: 56 for illegally reentering the country after being deported, 11 for smuggling aliens, and 32 for illegally reentering the country. The DOJ said that many of the defendants were repeat offenders who had been found guilty of things like asking a child to engage in sexual activity, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and having meth with the intent to sell it.
In the Southern District of Texas, 225 cases linked to immigration and border security were brought against 70 people who were accused of illegally entering the country again and 144 people who were accused of entering the country illegally. Most of those people have criminal convictions for drug crimes, immigration violations, and violent or sexual crimes.
Also in Texas, lawyers in the western district of the state brought 259 immigration-related criminal cases, but the DOJ did not make any details public.
Miguel Angel Torres-Segura, a Mexican citizen who was living in San Antonio illegally, is one of the people being charged. He is accused of being part of a group that smuggled people, and between May 2021 and June 2022, they were involved in at least 19 events involving more than 900 illegal immigrants. Torres-Segura has also been found guilty of entering the U.S. illegally twice and reentering illegally twice.
“We are grateful for the hard work of our border prosecutors in bringing these cases and helping to make our border safe again,” the DOJ said in a release.
Operation Take Back America, which started when President Donald Trump took office, aims to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, get rid of all drug gangs and other transnational criminal groups, and keep communities safe from violent criminals.