Federal prosecutors file 221 immigration cases in Western District of Texas

The latest federal immigration-case tally says a lot about the Western District of Texas and far less about Val Verde County by itself. U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said prosecutors filed 221 new immigration and immigration-related criminal cases from April 10 through April 16, a week that included smuggling, illegal-reentry and repeat-offender prosecutions across a district that stretches well beyond Del Rio.

That district-wide number is hard to translate into local impact without the county-level breakdown residents in Del Rio usually care about: how many cases move through the federal courthouse, how many migrant-processing events spill into local law enforcement, and how often border enforcement changes the pace of daily life near the river. CBP says the Del Rio Border Patrol Station area of responsibility includes about 30 miles of river border and parts of several counties, while Eagle Pass remains the most active area in the Del Rio Sector because of its proximity to populated Mexican border communities and San Antonio.

The case examples in the Justice Department update show the kind of work moving through the system. In El Paso, agents followed repeated phone calls after seeing an illegal alien run north from the border and wound up at a stash house on East Paisano Drive. There, prosecutors said Carlos Alberto Cardona admitted he had entered illegally on March 25 and agreed to work for a smuggling organization instead of paying his fee. He was allegedly promised $500 a week to transport migrants, and agents later found 14 illegal aliens at the stash house. Another alleged caretaker, Pedro Anaya-Anaya, also reportedly entered illegally on March 25 and agreed to work off a $3,500 smuggling debt.

Other cases centered on repeat entrants with violent criminal histories. Juan Carlos Andrade-Martinez was transferred to ICE custody on April 9 after being convicted and sentenced to 32 months in prison on March 17 for kidnapping charges tied to his state case. He had a prior improper-entry conviction in 2010 and was last removed from the United States in November 2019. Moises Velazquez-Perez, last deported Dec. 19, 2025, was found near a Burlington Northern Santa Fe railyard in El Paso after prior convictions in June 2023 for resisting an officer with violence and battery on a law-enforcement officer. Prosecutors also highlighted Bosco Joel Idrovo-Soto, who had an old aggravated-assault conviction in New Jersey.

For Val Verde County, the broader backdrop matters. Texas quietly shut down a county booking facility tied to Operation Lone Star in March, and federal border-security cases in the Western District continue at a high clip, with 261 filed the week before. The district also said it prosecuted 11,542 border-security cases and defended 652 civil immigration cases in 2025, underscoring how much of the region’s border burden still runs through federal court.