LAREDO, TX. (KGNS) - A man wanted for an alleged sex crime against a child is arrested while trying to enter the country.

The arrest happened last Wednesday when a vehicle crossing the border at the Juarez Lincoln Bridge was referred to secondary inspection.

During a background check, CBP officers discovered that Guadalupe Madrigal, 54 had an outstanding out of Iowa for lewd acts with a minor.

Madrigal was arrested and turned over to the Webb County Sheriff’s Office.

If he is found guilty, Madrigal could face up to ten years in prison.

LAREDO, Tx. (KGNS) -The Fourth Court of Appeals hands down a decision on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, in the Daisy Campos-Rodriguez versus Ricardo “Richie” Rangel case relating to the District 2 City Council race that took place November 2022.

Back in January 2023, Rodriguez filed an appeal in the ruling made by visiting Judge Susan Reed during the trial case.

The three panel justices began reviewing the case in July 2023.

In two separate opinions, justices ruled in favor of Rangel saying, “We conclude that the true outcome of the Nov. 8, 2022, election for Laredo Council District II was that Richie received more votes than Daisy, and Richie won the election.”

Meanwhile, the City of Laredo released a statement saying:

The Tex. Elec. Code §232.016 states that the appeal of an election contest suspends the execution of the district court’s judgment “pending the disposition of the appeal.” The City Attorney finds that the only reasonable and practical interpretation is to suspend the execution of the district court’s judgment until the appeal rights for both parties, Daisy Campos Rodriguez and Ricardo “Richie” Rangel Jr., have been exhausted. The Fourth Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Susan Reed’s District Court decision. Mr. Rangel requested for the Court of Appeals to refuse entertaining a motion for rehearing. However, the Court of Appeals denied Mr. Rangel’s request but shortened the timeline to file any motion for rehearing or reconsideration to 10 days. The Court of Appeals expressed its willingness to entertain such motions. The City Attorney’s office says, it is unreasonable to interpret that the suspension of the district court’s judgment, which is to last until “the disposition of the appeal”, should be lifted prior to the Court of Appeals’ possible reconsideration. Thereafter, the party losing the request for rehearing or reconsideration has 45 days from the date of the Court of Appeals’ last ruling on the motions to file a petition for review to the Texas Supreme Court.  Tex. R. App. P. 53.7(a). Ms. Campos Rodriguez’ Attorney Doug Ray sent a letter, placing the City on notice, on their intention to seek a rehearing and/or file a petition for review. Furthermore, the City Attorney’s office believes it would be impracticable to exercise the Court of Appeals’ Judgment, issued this morning, prior to Court of Appeals issuing its ruling on a motion for rehearing or reconsideration and/or the Texas Supreme Court deciding on a petition for review. Until the final disposition of all appeals in this matter, the City risks flipping the District 2 Council Member seat back and forth between Ms. Campos Rodriguez and Mr. Rangel based on intermediate court decisions. Until the final disposition of all appeals in this matter, the execution of the district court’s judgment remains suspended and Ms. Campos Rodriguez remains as the District 2 Council Member.

McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Federal maps provided to Border Report show concentrations of migrants along the Southwest border, most north of the border wall.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from South Texas, this week shared the Homeland Security maps from May that show startling numbers of undocumented migrants well above the border wall from South Texas to southern California.

The maps illustrate heat infrared imagery from May — the same month when Title 42 was lifted and there was a massive surge on the Southwest border by migrants.

Cuellar is ranking member of the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, and he said he wants to emphasize that despite millions of dollars spent to build border wall segments, most migrants are apprehended north of the structure.

The metal border wall is 18-feet to 30-feet-tall and newer sections built under the Trump administration have a 5-foot metal anti-climb solid sheet at the top.

However, on any given day, homemade, crude wooden ladders — pieced together hastily from random and often uneven wood — can be found near the border wall where migrants entered into the Rio Grande Valley and other parts along the border.

Republicans in Congress want miles more of border wall to be built.

And the Texas Legislature currently is debating — during its Fourth Special Legislative Session that just started — whether to spend $1.54 billion to build miles more of state-funded border wall along the banks of the Rio Grande that Texas shares with the Mexico.

“The first thing they talk about is the border wall, the border wall, and, and I’d be happy to show them the heat map that shows that Texas is different, because that fence is half a mile a mile away from the river and it doesn’t stop all the asylum seekers,” Cuellar told Border Report.

The maps show large swaths of heat given off from migrants being apprehended from most border cities, like Brownsville, Hidalgo, Del Rio, El Paso, and San Diego. But the imagery also shows apprehensions many miles from the border, like near the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas, in rural Brooks County, which is 65 miles north of the Rio Grande.

Heat sensors also picked up apprehensions northeast of Laredo on Interstate 35 near a checkpoint commonly called “Checkpoint Charley.”

“It’ll show you where there’s a fence, and then the heat map shows you the activity,” Cuellar said. “In the Valley where there is fencing, it shows you that’s the highest activity because you know, the fence is not in the middle of the river, which is the international border, and it shows you that the fence doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t stop them.”

The Biden administration last month announced that it will waive dozens of environmental laws in order to quickly build 20 miles of border wall in Starr County, which is part of Cuellar’s district.

“It’s a 14th Century solution to a 21st Century problem,” he is known for saying.

Republicans want to pressure the Biden administration for tougher immigration policies that will keep more migrants south of the border. And they want any financial aid package for Ukraine tied to border security.

The Biden administration has asked for $13.6 billion as part of a massive $106 billion spending package, which includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and border security funding.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, visited the Rio Grande Valley last month and told reporters he wasn’t sure the border wall was working to keep migrants out — given 2.6 million were encountered on U.S. soil in Fiscal Year 2023.

But he said infrastructure, as well as technology, and changes to border policy could help to stem the flow of migrants north.

“Smugglers, the  human smugglers are very smart. They communicate with each other. They figure out where the gaps are and try to exploit those gaps. So I have no idea whether this new construction actually makes any sense,” Cornyn said Oct. 9 during a luncheon.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday that he sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas emphasizing a new Texas law that gives U.S. Border Patrol agents additional authority — under specific circumstances — to enforce state felony charges against migrants for illegal entry if the incident occurs at a port of entry, or Border Patrol checkpoint.

“Texas has been forced to develop new solutions after the federal government abdicated enforcement and even weaponized immigration law to intensify surges of new arrivals at the border. Senate Bill 602 reflects Texans’ desire for a more robust and effective response to the historic levels of unvetted foreign aliens entering our state,” Paxton wrote.

Border Patrol agents must complete a specialized training program with the Texas Department of Public Safety prior to exercising such arrests, according to the new law that Gov. Greg Abbott signed during the 88th Legislature.

The new law took effect Sept. 1.

McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — There were 123 new immigration judges commissioned in the United States in Fiscal Year 2023 to help handle a backlog of immigration cases that is approaching 3 million, according to a new report.

Department of Justice, civil rights group to appeal federal judge’s ruling declaring DACA illegal

Of those newly commissioned immigration judges, only 21 handled at least 100 asylum cases their first year, according to a report this week by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University, which tracks immigration cases.

“Depending on the court and the docket to which a judge is assigned, it may take years to reach the 100-case threshold,” the report said.

Once they reach that threshold, TRAC evaluates how judge’s rule on asylum cases. And the outcomes vary greatly.

This ranged from a high of 94.8% asylum denial rate by Judge Erica Hughes in Houston; to a low of 1.2% denial rate by Judge Chloe Dillon in San Francisco, TRAC reports.

TRAC produced a record 732 reports on U.S. immigration judges activities in Fiscal Year 2023 — that’s up from the nonprofit’s first report in 1994 when there were just 193 judges.

Several of the new immigration judges were added to courts in towns along the Southwest border including two in Harlingen, Texas; one in Laredo; one in El Paso; and one in Imperial, California.

The most — 11 new immigration judges — were added in New York, which also is the location where thousands of migrants have been bused from Texas by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative.

The current backlog of immigration cases is almost 2.8 million. There were over 1.4 million new cases added in Fiscal 2023, 

Miami-Date County, Florida, has the most pending immigration deportation cases — over 120,000; followed by Los Angeles County with 88,000.

McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — A former fugitive and longtime leader of a notorious Mexican drug cartel has been deported from South Texas back to Mexico where he faces criminal charges, Department of Homeland Security officials announced this week.

Oscar Arturo Arriola Marquez, 54, was leader of the Arriola Marquez cartel, and was once one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said.

Officers with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations on Nov. 1 sent Arriola back to Mexico, they said. This came after he served several years jail time in the United States, and was after he had been on the lam and hunted by authorities in multiple countries for several years.

In 2003, a federal indictment and arrest warrant were issued against Arriola in Colorado charging him with conspiracy to distribute and import and export of controlled substances, as well as money laundering, according to ICE.

He was arrested on Feb. 2, 2006 in Mexico, and was paroled into the United States on March 1, 2010, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials through El Paso for criminal proceedings where he was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals.

On April 13, 2012, he was convicted in federal court in Colorado and sentenced to 22 years in prison on conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 11 pounds or more of cocaine into the United States and on money laundering conspiracy charges.

But just three years into his sentence, ICE ERO officials in Phoenix in July 2015 pegged him for removal from the United States via an immigration detainer.

This past summer, on Aug. 15, ERO officers in San Antonio took custody of Arriola. The next day, officials learned “from a foreign service national investigator that Arriola was the subject of an active foreign arrest warrant in Mexico,” ERO said.

Last month an immigration judge ordered him removed from the United States back to Mexico.

He was taken to the border town of Laredo, Texas, and turned over to Mexican authorities in Nuevo Laredo, according to ICE.

“Individuals who commit crimes of this magnitude in their home countries will find no refuge in the United States,” ERO San Antonio Interim Field Office Director Garrett Ripa said. “We will not sit idly by and allow our communities to be overrun with criminals.”

On June 1, 2005, President George W. Bush identified Arriola as a drug kingpin under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, also known as the Kingpin Act.

Once named under the Kingpin Act, U.S. residents are prohibited from engaging in financial and commercial transactions with designees. It also freezes any assets the designee may have in the United States.

The Arriola Marquez Organization was based in the tiny town of Saucillo, Mexico, about 50 miles southwest of Chihuahua City, and was linked to Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman Loera (Chapo Guzman) and the Carrillo Fuentes Organization, which also were named drug kingpins by then-President Bush.

In August 2005, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control named eight individuals and three companies associated with Arriola’s organization that were also listed under the Kingpin Act.

The Treasury Department said the Arriola Marquez Organization was affiliated with several “front companies” in Mexico that included large cattle businesses, real estate firms, car businesses, a gasoline distributor, and a food processing conglomerate.

LAREDO, TX. (KGNS) - Students at Heights Elementary School displayed their appreciation for veterans and their service.

Students got a chance to invite family members who served in the armed forces, so they could take part in the ceremony on Wednesday.

The school hopes that these types of events teach kids the importance of honoring those who have served our country.

“The students loved it. It was a very beautiful celebration; it was a short celebration. But it was an opportunity for them to see,” said Heights Elementary Teacher Rebecca Mendoza. “We had one in particular a marine who was fully dressed, so it was like oh my God, they were very intrigued.”

Kids and veterans got to enjoy a snack while looking at old newspaper articles about some of the service members.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - For the 15th year in a row, the Webb County Jail has passed its jail inspection.

The inspection took place last month in October by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in an unannounced visit.

Areas inspected include classification, medical, licensing, and training -- among many others.

The man in charge says it isn’t by chance that the jail is up to standards, but by holding themselves accountable.

Sheriff Martin Cuellar says, “That’s what the secret is in passing the inspections, we conduct our own inspections too. The men and women of the sheriff’s office are always prepared because they’re always checking to see, to make sure everything is working properly.”

Sheriff Cuellar says this year’s process was a little different than before since they have previously received high marks.