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Federal judge in El Paso acquits Peruvian migrant in Texas military zone trespassing case [1]
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Date: 2025-06-05
A federal magistrate in El Paso this week acquitted a Peruvian migrant on charges of criminal trespassing on the Texas National Defense Area in May – the first such case to reach trial in the region — testing the Trump administration’s recently established military zones along the southern border.
Federal Magistrate Judge Laura Enriquez on Wednesday approved a motion for acquittal by defense attorneys for Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez, agreeing that the evidence presented in trial was insufficient to sustain a conviction. In question was whether there had been a “willful” violation of defense property security regulations and whether the government had placed adequate signage warning people about the military zone.
“The government can’t place Ms. De La Cruz anywhere near that sign and has provided zero evidence that it was a willful violation,” Enriquez said. “Simply put, the court does not believe there is evidence that would rise to the requirement of this statute.”
The establishment of the so-called NDAs has faced legal challenges in preliminary court proceedings. A separate federal magistrate judge in El Paso last month tossed out similar charges against 16 people during a hearing before the cases reached trial – though the federal government soon indicted those migrants on the trespassing charges – while a federal judge in New Mexico dismissed charges against about 100 migrants accused of trespassing into the New Mexico National Defense Area.
The cases come after the Department of Defense declared two areas along the border as national defense areas – 180 miles along New Mexico now considered an extension of the Fort Huachuca Army base in Arizona, and 63 miles from El Paso to Fort Hancock in Texas considered an extension of Fort Bliss.
In the De La Cruz-Alvarez case, prosecutors charged her via what’s known as an information – a document similar to an indictment that avoids a grand jury and preliminary hearing.
The government in a trial memorandum argued it didn’t need to prove she knew she was on military land or that the land had been designated as a defense installation. It urged the court to adopt a minimal mens rea standard to the trespassing statute, essentially saying the government only needed to show she was generally aware she was doing “something” unlawful and not that it was willful violation, court documents show.
Enriquez denied the motion.
Verdicts on two related charges
The defense area trespassing was one of three charges De La Cruz-Alvarez faced, but the only one acquitted by the judge. A jury in the case Thursday found the 21-year-old guilty of illegal entry and not guilty of entering military property.
Enriquez sentenced her to time served plus a day.
De La Cruz-Alvarez, who didn’t testify, cried and hugged her attorneys.
“Gracias,” she told them in Spanish. “Thank you.”
She will be returned to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where she faces expedited removal, a fast-track deportation process that doesn’t require a hearing before an immigration judge.
“We told her what a strong and brave woman she was to take on the U.S. government and the Trump administration,” her attorney, Veronica Teresa Lerma, said after the trial.
For decades, most people charged with misdemeanor unlawful entry into the United States have quickly pleaded guilty and been sentenced to time served in jail awaiting trial. They are then placed into deportation proceedings. The addition of the military trespassing charges could prolong criminal proceedings, as they did in the De La Cruz-Alvarez case.
“She had no permission to be here,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Douglas Countryman said during closing arguments in the case. “It’s absurd to think she did not know she was coming to the U.S.,” U.S. Attorney Debra P. Kanof added.
De La Cruz-Alvarez was accused of unlawfully crossing from Mexico into the United States about 9.5 miles west of the Tornillo Port of Entry in far East El Paso County on or about May 12, court records show.
The case was made more complex when defense attorneys agreed to a bench trial where the judge makes the final ruling, but government attorneys pushed for a jury trial instead. The three charges moved forward together, but the judge acquitted De La Cruz-Alvarez on the NDA trespassing charge without sending the charge to the jury to decide.
De La Cruz-Alvarez, a 5-foot petite woman with long black hair, listened intently through an interpreter to the proceedings that focused heavily on whether signs alerting people of the defense zones were visible. She was expressionless for most of the trial, only occasionally leaning in to talk to her attorneys.
Prosecutors called four witnesses who were shown aerial photos captured by a drone depicting the area of the border where De La Cruz-Alvarez was arrested and asked to identify the Rio Grande, the levy that runs parallel to it and the border wall. Defense attorneys asked them whether the photos – which were taken days before the trial – depicted any signage. They only clearly identified one in a photo that was taken close up.
Raymundo Torres, an 18-year Border Patrol agent who works as a drone operator, testified that he saw through his drone’s camera a group of about six migrants walking in a crouched position toward a tree near the Mexican side of the Rio Grande on May 12.
But under cross-examination, the agent said he didn’t press the record button on the drone because winds picked up and he prioritized getting the expensive drone back safely and to avoid extensive paperwork if it were damaged. He said he did not know if the group he spotted crossed the border – or if De La Cruz-Alvarez was among them.
He also testified that he did not know whether the trespassing signs were erected May 12. In a moment out of a courtroom drama, defense attorney Shane McMahon stood across the courtroom holding a replica of a trespassing sign and asked Torres to read it. He could not see it clearly, Torres said, until McMahon was about three feet from him with the sign. A similar tactic was used by a federal public defender last month in pretrial hearings in another El Paso magistrate court.
“Where are these signs? Is there any evidence Ms. De La Cruz saw these signs?” McMahon asked.
“Knowingly means intentional and voluntary,” he later added. “There’s been no evidence showing Ms. De La Cruz knew she was in military land.”
Another Border Patrol agent testified he arrested De La Cruz-Alvarez as she sat on the south side of the border wall next to Texas National Guardsmen. He took her to the Border Patrol station in Clint just west of Tornillo for processing, he said.
When questioned about the signage, he testified that he did not know how far the signs were from each other or whether there was a sign at or near the site of the arrest May 12.
Demetria Walker, a realty specialist with the International Boundary and Water Commission, testified about how her office was charged with transferring control of the land from the commission to Fort Bliss.
McMahon pointed out that the transfer of control over the land was only for three years – the length of the remainder of Trump’s presidential term.
During questioning by defense attorneys, Walker said she had only seen signage in photos and had no knowledge of their placement. She also testified she wasn’t aware whether there had been any official “public disclosure” about the transfer beyond possibly on a military website.
A fourth witness, Maria Parga Davis, the complainant Border Patrol agent, walked jurors through what’s known as the Form I-213, a document providing basic facts about the person as support for the Department of Homeland Security to prove their “alienage” – or noncitizen status – and initiate removal proceedings.
The document stated De La Cruz-Alvarez is from La Libertad in northwestern Peru and was looking to travel to Florida. The document shows she has no immigration or criminal history on record and lists her as being under expedited removal procedures.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/06/05/texas-national-defense-area-trespassing-el-paso-trial-ends/
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