Jury rejects border military trespassing charge

Yahoo

17 hours ago

Jun. 5—In two words, an El Paso jury on Thursday rendered a blow to the Trump administration's new attempt to charge migrants with additional crimes for crossing illegally into the U.S. at the Texas and New Mexico international borders.
The "not guilty" verdict in U.S. Magistrate Court in El Paso came in the case of a Peruvian woman charged with the petty misdemeanor of entering restricted military property when she crossed into the U.S. on May 12 west of Tornillo, Texas.
The jury did convict Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez of the charge of illegal entry, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Laura Enriquez dismissed the third charge of violation of a security regulation.
It was one of the first times, if not the first, that average citizens have weighed in on the new "novel" approach to immigration enforcement at the U.S. border with Mexico.
The Department of Defense, at the behest of the White House, established temporary military zones in April adjacent to the international border. The defense areas stretch about 180 miles in New Mexico and 63 miles in western Texas, and signs are posted about every 100 feet warning of the restricted zones.
"This is a victory," said Veronica Lerma, one of the El Paso defense attorneys in the case. "We hope this sends a message that there are attorneys willing to set these case-for-jury trials and let the community decide." The jury deliberated for more than five hours after a two-day trial.
Efforts to reach the U.S. Attorney's Office in El Paso for comment weren't successful Thursday.
Lerma said her 21-year-old client, captured after she walked across the Rio Grande riverbed from Mexico, will likely be deported back to her home in Peru. She was sentenced to time served on the illegal entry conviction.
"She was crying and hugged us (upon hearing she was acquitted of the trespass charge)," said another defense attorney, Shane McMahon. Conviction on the petty misdemeanor would have carried a prison term of up to six months. The violation of a security regulation charge carries up to a year in prison.
The new regulations are part of the Trump administration's push to deter undocumented immigrants from entering the country illegally. The potentially stiffer penalties, coupled with threats of mass deportations — for some immigrants to El Salvadoran prisons — are all part of a larger plan to reduce unlawful crossings to zero.
"Many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans," reads an executive order, "Protecting the American People from Invasion," signed on President Donald Trump's first day in office. "Others are engaged in hostile activities, including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities. Many have abused the generosity of the American people, and their presence in the United States has cost taxpayers billions of dollars at the Federal, State, and local levels."
Before this new militarized zone, those convicted of illegal entry, typically charged for first time offenders, are deported after serving a brief stint in jail awaiting resolution of their cases.
Defense attorneys argued that there was no evidence that De La Cruz knew the border area she entered was military property. Federal prosecutors contended that there was no need to prove she saw the signs or had specific knowledge because she intended to willfully violate the law by crossing illegally into the U.S.
No such jury trials have occurred in New Mexico, according to court records. An estimated 700 cases involving military trespass violations at the New Mexico National Defense Area have been filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office, but the prosecutions have been rocky.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Mexico struck out when attempting to reinstate dozens of the military trespass charges dismissed by the state's chief U.S. Magistrate judge in Las Cruces on May 19.
U.S. District Judge Sarah M. Davenport of New Mexico ruled Monday that there was no legal avenue to appeal because of the way the cases were charged. The judge didn't address the primary argument being raised in such cases: that the defendants didn't know that the border area they entered was a military property.
Davenport wrote that the charges dismissed by Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth pertained to his ruling on a criminal complaint. Wormuth found the government lacked probable cause to bring military trespassing-related charges against a woman from Uzbekistan arrested in southern New Mexico in May.
Davenport concluded that because a criminal complaint was the mechanism by which the charges were filed, the government had no legal right to appeal.
Asked about the ruling, U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison of New Mexico told the Journal through a spokeswoman on Thursday, "We remain committed to the commonsense principle that border security is national security. Every nation has the right and obligation to know exactly who and what is coming across its borders. While we respectfully disagree with the adverse rulings from the Court, the United States Attorney's Office is considering all available next steps — including various avenues of appeal — and will act with confidence in the merits of our position. Together with our military and Border Patrol partners, we have already made tremendous strides towards achieving operational control of our southern border."
Davenport stated that the U.S. Attorney's Office can simply file what is known as a criminal information and continue such prosecutions.
And, in recent weeks, that's what federal prosecutors have done in hundreds of cases. By filing criminal charges via an information, "it takes it out of a magistrate's hands," said McMahon on Thursday.
But that could lead to the cases going to trial, as happened in El Paso.