EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Texas continues to criminally charge migrants allegedly caught disabling razor wire placed along the Rio Grande to prevent their illegal entry into the country.
Two Brazilian men and an Ecuadoran national on Tuesday appeared before a jail magistrate in El Paso County, who declined to lower their bond on a charge of criminal mischief.
The three men, William Silva and Wagner Miranda of Brazil, and Simon Bolivar Llivisaca, of Ecuador, allegedly crossed the border from Mexico into El Paso, Texas, last Sunday.
They were observed by the Texas Army National Guard using wire-cutters to make their way past the concertina wire and proceed to the top of the river levee, Assistant El Paso District Attorney Jessica Lamberth said at the Tuesday hearing.
Silva and Miranda allegedly ran to the top of the Rio Grande levee near Gate 36 of the border wall and Miranda was observed tossing away the pliers, according to Guard testimony relayed to the El Paso DA’s Office.
Likewise, the Guard allegedly observed Llivisaca using another set of wire cutters to disable the concertina and attempt to reach the border wall. Llivisaca says he was headed to join family members in the Washington, D.C.-area. The man told the magistrate he had a 10th-grade education and a 5-year-old daughter to provide for.
Miranda, 48, said he was headed to New Jersey to join his brother. He said his wife and four children are in Brazil. “I did not cause any damages to the wire, but I was there. It was already cut open,” Miranda told the magistrate through a court-provided Portuguese interpreter.
The District Attorney’s Office estimated at $750 (2.5 rolls of concertina at $300 per roll) the damage caused to the Texas barrier.
Llivisaca, Miranda and Silva said they did not have enough money to post a $1,000 bond. A representative of the El Paso Public Defender’s Office asked the jail magistrate to appoint a lawyer for them and lower the bond.
The magistrate declined to lower the men’s bond “based on circumstances and your lack of status in the United States.”
The migrants’ next step through the judicial system is a probable cause hearing. All wore the El Paso County Jail-issued white uniforms with orange stripes Tuesday.
Separately, the Texas Department of Public Safety late Monday announced the arrest of another four migrants in connection to wire-cutting activities near the border wall on March 29.
“Destroying state property is a crime. Those responsible will be arrested and charged,” DPS tweeted. “DPS (on March 29 arrested four illegal immigrants caught cutting (concertina) wire and attempting to breach the fence near Gate 36 in El Paso. All four have now been charged.”
