Border Patrol agents arrest sex offenders at the border

The Rio Grande Valley Sector Patrol agents arrested four undocumented migrants over the weekend who were found to be convicted sex offenders.

On January 7, police arrested Edgar Antonio Bajaras-Granados, 20, a registered sex offender. Granados had previously been arrested in Corpus Christi, Texas for abusing a child under the age of 14. The same year, he was also convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child, for which he served 300 community service hours and was sentenced to 10 years of probation.

On Sunday, police arrested a Guatemalan who was later identified as a convicted sex offender. He had been arrested in 2012 for having sex with a minor, and was convicted and sentenced to 480 days of confinement and eight months of probation.

Later that day, police identified a sex offender while conducting a criminal records check on a group of eight adults who had crossed the border. He was a Mexican national who had been arrested in Utah in 1997 for forcible sexual abuse. He was sentenced to one year of confinement.

On Saturday, another criminal records check found yet another sexual offender amidst a group of nine adult migrants. He had been arrested in 2016 in Minnesota for criminal sexual conduct. He was sentenced to 36 months of confinement and was deported.

Last week, Border Patrol agents also arrested two sex offenders and a gang member. Their criminal charges were found after the agents checked their criminal records.

In Fiscal Year 2021, Border Patrol agents found 488 convicted sexual offenders among those trying to cross the border. The number increased from 156 in FY2020 and 58 in FY2019. In FY 2022, which began in October, Border Patrol agents have so far apprehended 64 migrants convicted of sexual offenses.