More than 300 suspects charged with immigration-related crime in Arizona last week

PHOENIX — The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona announced Friday that 310 individuals were charged with illegal immigration activity from May 10 to 16.

Of those charged with criminal conduct, 170 illegally entered the United States, 125 illegally re-entered the U.S. and 15 allegedly smuggled undocumented individuals into the country, a press release revealed.

Federal agencies that helped in these cases included Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

What immigration crimes were highlighted from May 10-16?

On Wednesday, authorities charged 56-year-old Jose Herrera Daniel with “attempting to illegally export ammunition from the United States into Mexico.” U.S. Border Patrol agents found 6,339 rounds of 7.62-mm sized ammo in Daniel’s vehicle while inspecting it at the port of entry in Douglas, Arizona.

The day prior, Yolanda Mendivil-Diaz, who had illegally entered the U.S. in 2014, was charged with reentry of a removed alien. At the time of her last removal, Mendivil-Diaz was convicted of conspiracy to sell or transfer narcotic drugs, which the Superior Court of Arizona considers a felony offense, the release said.

Last Saturday, a U.S. citizen named Angelica Ramos-Lopez was charged with conspiracy to transport an illegal alien, birth certificate fraud and aggravated identity theft. Authorities at the State Route 85 immigration checkpoint near Gila Bend stopped Ramos-Lopez’s vehicle for inspection and found a child “covered by a blanket from head to toe.” Though the woman presented a birth certificate and claimed to be the child’s mother, the child told authorities they had a different name than presented and that Ramos-Lopez was their stepmother.

Ramos-Lopez later admitted that she didn’t actually know the child in her vehicle, the child was undocumented and she was being paid to take the child from Mexico to Phoenix. The birth certificate was connected to Ramos-Lopez’s biological son.

All of these cases above are individual pieces of the nationwide program, Operation Take Back America, which exists “to repel the invasion of illegal immigration.”

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