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.
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.
The move is part of the Trump administration’s expanded role of the military in border security.
In April, the administration established a 170-mile-long National Defense Area in New Mexico stretching from the Arizona border to Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Eighty-two migrants were arrested in the New Mexico NDA during the first week of enforcement. Records show it was the Border Patrol who took most, if not all, of the trespassers into custody.
Advocacy organizations oppose the increased military presence at the border. They say it could lead to civil rights violations.
Several run-ins with the law during lengthy stay in U.S.
On May 2, border agents located and interviewed Sotelo and determined he did not have immigration documents allowing him to be present in the United States.
Further, the Border Patrol determined Sotelo illegally entered the country though the Texas NDA, which is marked by 12-inch by 18-inch metal signs in English and Spanish. Border agents took him into custody.
Court records show Sotelo was arrested in Louisiana in 2015 for domestic abuse and battery and in 2020 for theft. He served a year in prison for the theft and received probation for domestic abuse.
He was arrested in Levelland, Texas, on drug possession charges and again in 2023 for allegedly driving while intoxicated. Sotelo was removed from the U.S. and then arrested twice for illegally returning to the country. He was convicted of felony illegal re-entry in 2024 and sentenced to six months incarceration, records show.
Sotelo was last removed from the U.S. on Dec. 28, 2024.