EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A Mexican citizen with a lengthy record of criminal and immigration transgressions is being held without bond for allegedly trespassing on the new military buffer zone in El Paso.
The May 2 arrest of Leonel Sotelo Santillan 1.2 miles west of the Paso del Norte Port of Entry might have been the first inside the Department of Defense’s recently designated Texas National Defense Area. But it was by no means the last.
A total of 87 individuals were charged in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas between May 2 to May 8 for unlawful entry into Department of Defense property, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told Border Report.
Defense Department designates second military zone on Texas-Mexico border
Few details of the arrests are known beyond what can be found on court records. The surge comes on the wings of the Department of Defense taking over a 63-mile-long, 60-foot-wide stretch of land between the American Dam in El Paso and Fort Hancock, Texas, that was previously managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission…