U.S. Federal District Court in Las Cruces. (Photo by Leah Romero / Source NM)
A federal judge this week dismissed novel criminal charges brought by the U.S. government against more than 100 migrants who crossed into a newly created military buffer zone along New Mexico’s border with Mexico.
On April 15, the U.S. Department of Interior transferred 406 square miles of land to the U.S. Army. Three days later, the Army made the land an extension of the Fort Huachuca Army installation in Arizona. That same day, the fort’s commander issued a security regulation designating the land as a restricted area.
Then in the last week of April, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico started charging people with trespassing on the land, now called the New Mexico National Defense Area.
After hearing arguments from U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison and federal public defenders last week, U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth on Wednesday dismissed the trespass charges against 98 migrants, according to court records. He ruled that the migrants couldn’t have known that they were entering a military zone when they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
Amanda Skinner, the federal public defender who argued with the U.S. government over the charges, said Thursday that Judge Wormuth dismissed the same counts against an additional 22 migrants who were likely arrested on Wednesday and Tuesday.
Prosecutors have charged at least 339 people under the military trespass laws, according to news releases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Mexico.
“We acknowledge and respect the judge’s authority to determine probable cause,” Skinner, the federal public defender, told Source NM in a statement. “This was the right result under the law.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Mexico did not respond to an email seeking comment on the dismissals.
Ellison argued that migrants should have known they weren’t allowed to cross into the land because of nearly 200 signs the government has installed along the border, and noted that more signs are being installed.
That argument failed to convince Wormuth, who ruled there is no reason to believe any of the migrants could have, or did, see the signs.
“Beyond the reference to signage, the United States provides no facts from which one could reasonably conclude that the Defendant knew he was entering the NMNDA,” Wormuth wrote.
The government’s factual allegations against the migrants are “virtually identical” when it comes to the military trespass charges across hundreds of cases, Wormuth wrote. Prosecutors have taken a “cut-and-paste approach” in their criminal complaints, he wrote, which allows him to apply the same legal analysis “across every criminal complaint charging these crimes filed thus far and still pending.”
The migrants still face charges of entering the U.S. without inspection, which could mean they will face deportation. Wormuth dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning prosecutors can refile them.
It remained unclear on Thursday where the migrants are being held as they await their hearings. On Thursday, an immigration attorney said all three of the immigration detention centers in New Mexico are full during a news conference with U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) announcing new legislation that would require more accountability for immigration detention officials.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told Source NM on Wednesday that the U.S. Marshals Service decides where defendants are detained. A spokesperson for the Marshals Service, when reached by phone for comment, asked Source NM to submit questions in writing, and then did not respond to an emailed list of questions.
A spokesperson for the Department of Defense told Source NM the New Mexico National Defense Area itself does not contain confinement areas.
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