El Salvadoran Man Recently Convicted of Sexual Battery Sentenced to Maximum Federal Prison Term for Unlawful Reentry by a Removed Alien

Jackson, MS – An El Salvadoran national who recently pled guilty to sexual battery was sentenced August 6, 2025 to twenty-four months in federal prison, the maximum sentence for unlawful reentry by a removed alien. Jose Rigoberto Mejia-Cubias will serve his federal prison sentence consecutively to the twenty-five-year sentence for his sexual battery conviction in the Madison County Mississippi Circuit Court.

According to court documents, Mejia-Cubias was arrested on January 30, 2025, by the Madison Police Department and charged with the sexual battery of a patron of a local restaurant where he worked as a bartender. Immigration officials determined that Mejia-Cubias was illegally in the United States and that he had previously been removed from the United States to El Salvador on August 26, 2010. Mejias-Cubias was charged with both federal and state crimes, and he later pled guilty to the state and federal charges.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, Patrick A. Lemon and Eric P. DeLaune, Special Agent-in-Charge for Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans, Louisiana; and Brian Acuna, Acting Field Office Director of ICE/ERO in New Orleans, made the announcement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kabah Ealy prosecuted the case.