CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas filed 296 immigration and related cases between June 5 and June 11, Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck announced.
The charges include 186 people for unlawfully reentering the United States and 65 for illegal entry. Many of those charged have previous convictions related to narcotics trafficking, immigration offenses and violent crimes. An additional 41 people allegedly engaged in human smuggling, while the remaining 9 face immigration-related charges.
Among those charged is Pedro Martinez-Arias of Mexico. Law enforcement discovered him near Linn after he had previously been removed Oct. 19, 2024. A criminal complaint alleges he has a prior conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and had been ordered to serve 168 months in prison before his removal from the United States.
Martinez-Arias and others charged with felony reentry after prior removal face up to 20 years in federal prison upon conviction.
Separately, two Guatemalan nationals admitted to their roles in a 2021 mass casualty event in Chiapas, Mexico. Josefa Quino Canil De Zavala and Alberto Marcario Chitic acknowledged they conspired with other smugglers to transport people from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States. They recruited migrants, collected payment, arranged travel and provided scripted language to unaccompanied minors in the event U.S. immigration authorities apprehended them.
On Dec. 9, 2021, they and others arranged for migrants to be loaded into a tractor-trailer that crashed north of the Guatemala-Mexico border, killing more than 50 people and injuring more than 100 others.
The cases are part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative.
Federal law enforcement partners supporting the cases include Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. State and local law enforcement partners also assisted.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas represents 43 counties and more than 10 million people across 44,000 square miles. Assistant U.S. Attorneys from seven divisions — Houston, Galveston, Victoria, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen and Laredo — work with federal, state and local law enforcement partners to prosecute federal crimes.
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