Border Patrol agents apprehended four sex offenders, including a rapist and men with child sex convictions, attempting to cross the southern border, as agents continue to deal with massive migrant numbers.
In a press release, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas arrested four convicted sex offenders, along with 22 gang members.
Agents on Aug. 5 arrested a Guatemalan national who had previously been arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 by force and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Agents also picked up a group of six migrants that day, including a Salvadoran national who had been convicted for indecent exposure with a child in Houston in 2016, a crime for which he was sentenced to 10 years probation.
MEXICAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CONVICTED OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY POSSESSION
A day later, a group of three near the Rio Grande Valley included a Mexican national with a prior rape conviction and one-year prison sentence in Portland, Ore. He had previously been deported.
Hours later, agents in Brownsville arrested a group of four migrants, including a 32-year-old Mexican national who had previously been deported after being arrested and found guilty of cruelty toward a child and transmission of child pornography in Florida.
This week, agents arrested a Mexican illegal immigrant with a prior arrest for sexual assault of a child under 11 in South Carolina. He had been found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
CBP also announced that agents had stopped 22 gang members, including members of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, was formed in Los Angeles by Central American immigrants and has expanded across the continent. Its motto is said to be "mata, viola, controla" — "kill, rape, control."
The arrests come as a Mexican illegal immigrant who entered the U.S. earlier this year has been convicted of possessing child pornography.
Christian Dolores Munoz-De La Rosa, a 24-year-old Mexican national, pleaded guilty to transporting and possessing child pornography, the Justice Department announced last week.
Munoz-De La Rosa admitted to being part of a group of illegal immigrants caught near Carrizo Springs, Texas, in June. When he was picked up, authorities examined his phones and discovered the illegal images.
The phone contained 116 images of children, some involving children as young as 3.
Munoz-De La Rosa faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in November. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the investigation was conducted by its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit in collaboration with the U.S. Border Patrol.
Last week, agents in the Rio Grande Valley arrested five convicted sex offenders, including a Salvadoran MS-13 gang member with prior criminal history for carnal knowledge of a child, a Mexican with a prior conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child and a Peruvian with a prior conviction for raping a victim who was under 17.
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Border Patrol has arrested 8,354 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions so far this fiscal year, including 248 for sexual offenses.
While that is a small percentage of the more than 200,000 migrants Border Patrol agents have encountered each month, it does not account for the more than 500,000 migrants who have gotten past agents.
