(LibertySociety.com) – Following the violent assault on five Texas National Guardsmen, state officials and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began investigating the incident to identify and arrest those involved. On March 27, Texas charged nine illegal migrants for property damage of over $2,500, inciting a riot, and for assaulting the guardsmen.
Two days later, Texas arrested 70 individuals who were allegedly involved in the unlawful attempt to enter the country. A 21-year-old Honduran illegal migrant named Junior Evaristo-Benitez was the first to face charges for stepping on a guardsman’s knee “purposefully and with malice.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) currently has around 200 illegal migrants detained who were believed to have participated in the violence. According to the New York Post, the state wants to bring charges against everyone involved. A bond hearing for 39 of the illegal migrant offenders was held on March 31. Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta allowed for the release of those individuals, as they were only charged with participating in a riot. He justified the move by pointing out that the El Paso District Attorney’s Office did not schedule separate hearings for individual defendants.
In his ruling, Acosta said that it did not look like the cases would be filed by the DA anytime soon. The illegal migrants were released “on their own recognizances,” but they were immediately transferred to ICE detention upon release. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), most of the illegal migrants involved in ripping away razor wire and bum-rushing the national guardsmen were adult males from Venezuela. One man allegedly attempted to grab a firearm from one of the guardsmen. Shanks and knives were found on many of the men when they were arrested. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott surged 200 additional guardsmen to the area where the incident occurred, promising to keep illegal migrants from attempting to enter the country anywhere besides through the ports of entry.
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