Two migrants convicted of illegally entering New Mexico National Defense Area

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) -- Two migrants were just convicted of trespassing into the recently established New Mexico National Defense Area.

The Department of the Army established this restricted area, as well as other similar areas along the border, earlier this year. New federal statutes then established criminal penalties for unlawful intrusion into those areas.

Mexican national Andres De Los Santos-Martinez pleaded guilty to re-entry after deportation, willfully violating a defense property security regulation, and military trespass by entering the New Mexico National Defense Area. Border Patrol agents picked up De Los Santos-Martinez in Doña Ana County on June 1, 2025. Officials say he had previously been apprehended in the National Defense Area on May 7, 2025.

Mexican national Eduardo Herrera-Juvencio also pleaded guilty to re-entry after deportation, willfully violating a defense property security regulation, and military trespass by entering the New Mexico National Defense Area. Herrera-Juvencio, like De Los Santos-Martinez had been apprehended in the National Defense Area twice, officials say.

"These are the first convictions in the District of New Mexico under the new federal enforcement strategy, which grants the military expanded authority over an approximately 60-foot-wide, 170-mile-long strip of land along the New Mexico border, now managed by the U.S. Army as a National Defense Area. The NDA is marked with signs in English and Spanish warning that unauthorized entry is prohibited and subject to federal prosecution," federal prosecutors say.

Yesterday, federal prosecutors in Texas announced the first trial conviction connected to illegal entry into a National Defense Area.