


A Peruvian migrant charged with illegally entering a military zone after crossing the border from Mexico into Texas was acquitted in another legal blow to the Trump administration.
Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez, 21, was detained by soldiers on May 12 after being found in a newly designated military zone, then arrested by a Border Patrol agent. She was charged with entering the country illegally, violating national defense property, and trespassing onto a military base — all misdemeanors. U.S. Magistrate Judge Laura Enriquez found her guilty of the first count but acquitted her on the latter two.
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Though she will likely face deportation, the failure of the trespassing charges is a significant blow to a new strategy by the Trump administration — to boost penalties to illegal migrants by designating vast swathes of the border a military zone.
“Hopefully, this sets the tone for the federal government,” Veronica Teresa Lerma, one of De La Cruz-Alvarez’s defense attorneys, told the Texas Tribune, adding, “so they know what the El Paso community will do with these charges.”
The Peruvian migrant was the subject of the first trial of an immigrant on military trespassing grounds. U.S Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas was unperturbed, saying the Trump administration would continue prosecutions based on trespassing charges. He found a silver lining in the ruling.
De La Cruz-Alvarez’s defense attorneys argued that the 1-foot-wide by 2-foot-tall sign denoting the area as a military zone was too small for her to properly see, which the judge cited in her ruling as the reason for the acquittal.
“There was zero testimony that Ms. De La Cruz (1) ever saw any such signage, (2) knew that the area was designated as any kind of a military zone, (3) had any intention, willfully or otherwise, to enter upon a military zone,” Enriquez wrote in the ruling.
Prosecutors argued that De La Cruz-Alvarez knew she was in a military zone.
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“She knew exactly what she was doing,” federal prosecutor Phillip Douglas Countryman said, according to the Texas Tribune. Crossing the border illegally “should come with some sort of punishment.”
“At the end of the day, another illegal alien has been found guilty of illegally entering the country in violation of the improper entry statute and will be removed from the United States,” Simmons said in a statement to the Associated Press. “That’s a win for America.”
President Donald Trump designated 180 miles of the New Mexico border with Mexico a national defense area, along with a further 63 miles in West Texas. The zones are overseen by Arizona’s Fort Huachuca and El Paso’s Fort Bliss.