U.S. Attorney’s Office Filed 102 Border-Related Cases This Week

SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of California filed 102 border-related cases this week, including charges of bringing in aliens for financial gain, reentering the U.S. after deportation, and importation of controlled substances.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California is the fourth-busiest federal district, largely due to a high volume of border-related crimes. This district, encompassing San Diego and Imperial counties, shares a 140-mile border with Mexico. It includes the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the world’s busiest land border crossing, connecting San Diego (America’s eighth largest city) and Tijuana (Mexico’s second largest city).

In addition to reactive border-related crimes, the Southern District of California also prosecutes a significant number of proactive cases related to terrorism, organized crime, drugs, white-collar fraud, violent crime, cybercrime, human trafficking and national security. Recent developments in those and other significant areas of prosecution can be found here.

A sample of border-related arrests this week:

• On August 22, Juan Nunez-Bravo was arrested and charged with Attempted Entry after Deportation. According to a complaint, Nunez-Bravo tried to enter the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry by telling a Customs and Border Protection officer that he was a U.S. citizen who had lost his documents. The officer discovered through fingerprints that Nunez-Bravo was, in fact, a Mexican citizen who had been previously deported in 1996 and 2012.
• On August 27, Jose Alfred Vasquez-Garcia, a Mexican national, was arrested and charged with Attempted Entry after Deportation. According to a complaint, the defendant was aboard a 20-foot white boat with other undocumented immigrants when it was intercepted by a Customs and Border Protection vessel. Vasquez-Garcia had been previously deported on May 6 from the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
• On August 27, Luzbelen Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen, was arrested and charged with Bringing in Aliens for Financial Gain and Aggravated Identity Theft. According to a complaint, the defendant attempted used a bogus birth certificate to smuggle a child into the United States through the San Ysidro Port of Entry pedestrian lanes in a stroller. The woman claimed the child was her two-year-old daughter. A Customs and Border Protection officer asked the defendant to remove the blankets obscuring the child in the stroller and discovered a nine-year-old girl from Oaxaca.
• On August 27, Jonathan Gomez Rangel, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and charged with Importation of a Controlled Substance. According to a complaint, Gomez attempted to cross the border at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry when Customs and Border Protection officers discovered 51 packages weighing 120 pounds of cocaine concealed in the roof of the vehicle.

Also recently, a number of defendants with criminal records were sentenced for border-related crimes such as illegally re-entering the U.S. after previous deportation. Here are a few of those cases:

• On August 25, Mirhzan Javier Roa-Gomez, a Mexican national who was previously convicted of misdemeanor illegal entry in March, was sentenced in federal court to 66 days in custody for again entering the U.S illegally.
• On August 29, Hector Armando Ibarra Mendoza, a Mexican national who was previously convicted of felony stalking and injury to a spouse/cohabitant, was sentenced in federal court to 12 months in custody for again entering the U.S illegally.

The immigration cases were referred or supported by federal law enforcement partners, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE ERO), Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), with the support and assistance of state and local law enforcement partners.

Indictments and criminal complaints are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.