An illegal alien from El Salvador who had been deported after a conviction for indecency with a child by contact was arrested on Wednesday morning, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). He had at least one outstanding warrant in Harris County and border police say he gave a false name when encountered.
In a press release, CBP stated that Rodrigo Quinteros-Mercado, 24, was taken into custody after crossing illegally near Hidalgo with a group of eight illegal aliens that included a 7-year-old girl accompanied by her mother. Officers from the McAllen Border Patrol Station made the arrests.
Quinteros-Mercado was convicted in 2019 of indecency with a child by contact, which is a second-degree felony. A judge sentenced Quinteros-Mercado to probation for five years and he was required to register as a sex offender for life. The victim was a 16-year-old girl, according to the Texas Sex Offender Registry.
CBP indicated that Quinteros-Mercado was deported after he was arrested again in 2019 on charges of “stalking and child abuse.” After he was deported, a Harris County assistant district attorney filed a criminal complaint in March 2020 accusing him of failing to comply with sex offender registration, according to the district clerk’s records.
There have been 1,682 criminal noncitizens apprehended in the U.S. by border guards so far in Fiscal Year 2022, per CBP records. 64 of these individuals had been convicted of “sexual offenses,” while 174 had been convicted of “assault, battery, (and) domestic violence.” These figures reflect the number of arrests and are not estimates of how many criminal noncitizens have breached the border.
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Hayden Sparks
Hayden Sparks is a senior reporter for The Texan and a lifelong resident of the Lone Star State. He has coached competitive speech and debate and has been involved in politics since a young age. One of Hayden's favorite quotes is by Sam Houston: "Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."
