Federal prosecutors in Arizona charged 216 individuals with immigration-related offenses during a single week of enforcement actions late last month, federal authorities announced Friday.
Operation Take Back America
The charges include 106 counts against individuals for illegally re-entering the United States, 98 counts for illegal entry, and 12 counts against people accused of smuggling illegal immigrants into and through the state. A broad coalition of federal and local agencies backed the operations, including U.S. Border Patrol, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
Court documents outlined several notable arrests made during the week, including a human smuggling case filed on July 29 against Sarah Desiree Rios-Martin. Authorities said an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper pulled over a blue Volvo SUV on July 28 after watching the vehicle abruptly cut across a highway exit gore point onto a frontage road.
Once the vehicle stopped on the shoulder, three men wearing camouflage clothing jumped out and fled into the brush on foot. Border Patrol agents called to the scene tracked footprints from the vehicle and eventually located one of the fleeing passengers hiding in a tree. Investigators determined he was a Mexican citizen unlawfully present in the country.
In a separate filing on July 27, federal prosecutors charged Hector Mauricio Tucto-Rivera with re-entry of a removed alien. Records show Tucto-Rivera was previously deported on June 20, 2017, following a felony aggravated assault conviction in Arizona Superior Court, for which he received an 18-month probation sentence.
Federal authorities stated that these arrests fall under “Operation Take Back America,” a national Department of Justice initiative focused on addressing unlawful border crossings and prosecuting transnational criminal organizations.
Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.
