US military identifies 2 Marines killed in vehicle crash near Mexico border
Lance Cpl. Albert Aguilera, 22, of Riverside, Calif., and Lance Cpl. Marcelino Gamino, 28, of Fresno, Calif., were killed Tuesday after their non-tactical vehicle crashed around 8:50 a.m. during a convoy movement from Santa Teresa to El Paso, Texas, the 1st Marine Division said in a statement Thursday.
The two Marines, who were both combat engineers, had been supporting Border Patrol units as part of Joint Task Force–Southern Border operations. A third Marine was injured in the accident and remains in critical condition.
All three individuals come from the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and were on a reconnaissance mission as the Pentagon looks to better its understanding of the U.S.-Mexico border region, The Washington Post reported.
'The loss of Lance Cpl. Aguilera and Lance Cpl. Gamino is deeply felt by all of us,' Marine Corps Lt. Col. Tyrone Barrion, the commanding officer for 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, said in a statement. 'I extend my heartfelt condolences and prayers to the families of our fallen brothers.'
At the time of the crash, which the Post reported as a roll-over, the three Marines were in a convoy moving east. The military has not released details as to their exact activities surrounding the accident, as an investigation is ongoing.
The deaths mark the first such casualties since the Trump administration has ordered thousands more active-duty troops to the southern border to crack down on illegal immigration.
Aguilera, who enlisted in March 2023, was promoted to lance corporal in May 2024, according to the Marine statement.
Gamino, meanwhile, enlisted in May 2022 and was promoted to lance corporal in August 2024, with decorations that include the National Defense Service Medal and the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon. He also deployed to Darwin, Australia in 2024 with Marine Rotational Force-Darwin.
Joint Task Force-Southern Border, created in March, is an operation meant to aid U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in monitoring the border between the United States and Mexico to protect against transnational criminal organizations.
The task force was set up after President Trump issued an executive order shortly after taking office on Jan. 20 for a crackdown on illegal entries across the border.
The military's role at the border is expected to widen after the Trump administration on Tuesday transferred control of roughly 110,000 acres of federally held land to the Defense Department. The move allows the military to more actively help law enforcement detain those who cross illegally, marking a break from the role of troops at the border in past administrations.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
6 minutes ago
- New York Post
DC police allegedly downplay violent crimes to make stats look more favorable: ‘Completely agree' with Trump
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, is facing accusations it routinely manipulates statistics on crimes such as stabbings, shootings and carjackings to create the appearance that violent offenses are dropping. At least one high-ranking officer has been suspended so far over the disturbing allegations, which the DC Police Union has said effectively reflect standard operating procedure. Michael Pulliam, police commander of the DC's 3rd District, was put on paid leave in mid-May, allegedly for manipulating local crime statistics to make them appear more favorable. 'When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on that scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense,' DC Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton told NBC Washington last month. 'So instead of taking a report for a shooting or a stabbing or a carjacking, they will order that officer to take a report for a theft or an injured person to the hospital or a felony assault, which is not the same type of classification.' The department confirmed to the outlet that Michael Pulliam, commander of the city's 3rd District, was put on paid leave in mid-May — and unnamed law enforcement sources said he was being investigated internally for making questionable changes to crime data. Pulliam allegedly falsified violent crime statistics to make them appear more favorable for the city, an accusation he denies. President Trump last week invoked section 740 of DC's Home Rule Act to place the capital's police force under federal control for 30 days, citing an out-of-control rise in violent crime, particularly among youthful offenders. President Trump evoked a section of Washington, DC's, Home Rule Act to put law enforcement authorities under federal control in the district for 30 days and has deployed 700 National Guard troops. AP 'Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,' Trump said Monday. 'And we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it.' Trump said the crime crackdown — which he dubbed 'Liberation Day' for DC — would include the deployment of 700 National Guard members, with an additional 750 coming from GOP-led South Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia in the days to come. The move provoked swift condemnation from liberals, who rushed to left-leaning news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC to accuse the president of everything from 'federal overreach' to 'a power grab' to using the federal takeover as a ploy to get late powerful pedophile Jeffrey Epstein out of the headlines. Prominent Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York City and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to social media to parrot the MPD's crime stats, which have been thrown into question pending the results of the Pulliam investigation. 'Violent crime in Washington, DD, is at a 30-year low,' Jeffries said Monday. 'Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. And zero credibility on the issue of law and order. Get lost.' Clinton posted on X last week, 'As you listen to an unhinged Trump try to justify deploying the National Guard in DC, here's reality: Violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low.' The District of Columbia has the fourth-highest murder rate per capita in the US, according to a February report by Rochester Institute of Technology, seeing 265 murders — a 20-year high — in 2023 and 186 in 2024. Even with the 30.7% drop in homicides between 2023 and 2024 as recorded by the MPD, DC remained the fourth worst US city for murders per capita, edging out well-known homicide hot spots like Compton, California; Newark, New Jersey and even Chicago. In announcing the crackdown, President Trump noted that DC's murder rate even eclipses those of crime-challenged Mexico City and Bogota, Colombia. The MPD's data also asserts that violent crime in DC dropped 35% across the board between 2023 (5,345 reported incidents) and 2024 (3,469 incidents). Pemberton said during an interview on Fox Business that the police union 'completely agree[s]' with Trump's decision to federalize the city's police force. 'Crime in the district is out of control and something needs to be done about it. This concept that crime is down is really an old trope,' he said. 'They're using statistics in a way that makes it appear that crime is going down, but our rank-and-file officers know that we're going call to call to call for armed carjackings, stabbings, robberies, shootings, homicides and the crime isn't going anywhere.' The Post reached out to the union Sunday but did not immediately hear back.
The Hill
6 minutes ago
- The Hill
Bondi: 68 arrested overnight in DC
Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Sunday that authorities arrested 68 people overnight in Washington, D.C., amid a federal crackdown on crime in which President Trump has sent the National Guard to the nation's capital and federalized the police force. 'Over 300 arrests in D.C. — and counting: Just last night, our federal and DC law enforcement partners made 68 arrests and seized 15 illegal firearms,' Bondi said in a post on the social platform X. 'Homicide suspects, drug traffickers, and more are being charged. I'll continue to stand with you as we make DC safe again!' Trump last week said he would take federal control of D.C.'s police department and deploy the National Guard to the city. The president's moves have drawn heavy blowback from Democrats and D.C. residents. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who also recently compared the nation's capital to multiple foreign war zones, said in a post on the social platform X that 'graffiti is coming down in Washington, DC.' 'Graffiti left untouched to scar public spaces is the visual declaration of a society's surrender,' Miller said in his Sunday post. On Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) dismissed Trump's recent crackdown on the nation's capital as a 'stunt' and suggested, like other Democrats, that the effort is meant to distract from other events in the news. 'What's happening here in Washington, D.C., is just a stunt. Donald Trump didn't like the fact that the walls were closing in on him, that his own base was questioning why he wouldn't release the Epstein files, why he was protecting very powerful people,' Murphy told NBC News's Kristen Welker on 'Meet the Press.' 'He didn't want to talk anymore about the fact that our health care system is about to collapse because of the cuts that they have made, that premiums are going to go up by 75 percent on Americans,' the Connecticut senator added. But Republicans and the administration have argued the federal crackdown is a necessary step given high murder and crime rates in D.C., while suggesting that Democrats running cities have done a poor job handling the issue.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Trump is right about border and criminals, but he's losing voters with mass deportations
President Donald Trump delivered on his key campaign promise: Securing the border. Yet the only thing falling faster than illegal crossings has been his approval rating on immigration. The problem: Instead of building on his win at the border with more popular arrests of criminal threats inside the country, the administration is going after migrants indiscriminately. Democrats can't deny it: The border crisis is over. Border Patrol arrests have fallen nearly 90% since December to near-record lows. Nonetheless, only 40% of voters approved of the president's handling of immigration in a July Quinnipiac poll, while 55% disapproved. The 15-point approval deficit contrasts with a +1 rating in the January Q-poll. Other polls show similarly dramatic declines. Of course, people don't actually want more illegal immigration. Polls consistently show that the president is the most trusted on the border. Instead, it's the deportations from within the United States driving the discontent. Quinnipiac's July poll found that only 38% approve of how the administration is handling deportations. That doesn't mean voters back the other side — 84% of disagree with Democrats who want to suspend deportations completely, according to a March Pew Research Center poll. But Trump emphasized that he would prioritize ending 'sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals' — the position of 81% of voters. Unfortunately, most voters don't believe the president is doing that right now. Even as late as June, voters told CBS News they thought that the president was prioritizing 'dangerous criminals' over peaceful immigrants 53%-47%. By mid-July, it was 44%-56% the other way — an 18-point swing in a month. What happened? Voters started to see how the priorities shifted. According to The Post's reporting, agents were instructed in late May to focus on 'quantity over quality' to meet a 3,000-per-day 'goal' set by the White House. ICE was advised to target people looking for work at Home Depot and to raid businesses in industries likely to employ illegal workers. Rather than scooping up violent criminals recklessly sent back to the streets by New York City or even cleaning out the homeless shelters costing New York taxpayers a fortune, ICE is arresting immigrants who are helping power the Trump economy. Since the White House ordered the change, there has been a dramatic escalation in arrests of people without criminal records. In June, the number of immigrants arrested without criminal convictions was 1,100% higher than it was even in 2017 during the first Trump term: nearly 6,000 per week. Yet there are still half a million illegal immigrants with criminal convictions out there to remove — and ICE should locate them before spending its time and resources on workers. It's common sense: ICE agents told The Post that the policy was 'leading them to leave some dangerous criminal illegal migrants on the streets.' Setting aside politics and crime, Trump has already publicly acknowledged there's an economic downside to these non-criminal deportations. 'Our aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' he said in June, referencing farms, hotels, and leisure businesses. The president is correct. Besides the border, the president's other primary election issue was inflation. And immigrants reduce inflation — not, as critics claim, by depressing wages for American workers, but by increasing production of goods and services. When supply decreases, prices go up for consumers, as we painfully saw throughout the pandemic. Immigrant workers also benefit their American counterparts: Companies invest more when there is enough labor to quickly construct and fully man facilities, and Americans end up in better jobs as managers and supervisors when immigrant workers fill lesser-skilled jobs. Booting the nearly 2 million illegal-immigrant construction workers will pull Americans out of those better-paying jobs, not into the labor force. Whatever the immigration politics are, Trump's midterm success will ultimately depend most on his economic outcomes. Americans re-elected him because they remember his first term before the pandemic as a period of stable wage and job growth — but random mass deportations are both politically unpopular and economically destabilizing. Although the president has promised 'changes are coming' on deportations, none have yet occurred. In April, Trump floated the idea that employers might be able to sponsor their illegal workers for visas if the workers leave the country and return legally. That's a great starting point: If no employer is willing to vouch for them, deportation likely won't have much economic downside. The president has diagnosed the problem. He's come up with a viable solution. And the One Big Beautiful Bill shows he's capable of navigating controversial legislation across the finish line. With the economy slowing and midterms looming, there's no reason to wait. David J. Bier is Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute.
