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Border & Immigration

Judge Sentences Serial Border Crosser To 7 Years

By Michel Marizco / Senior Field Correspondent
Published May 4, 2011 at 7:13 AM PDT
This story was published more than 13 years ago.
Serial Border Crosser
Serial Border Crosser

A Mexican man who had been crossing the border illegally since 1994 was finally sentenced to seven years in prison.

In the end, it was a drug case that finally ended Joaquin Valdez's serial border crossings. The 38 year old was captured and deported at least four times in 17 years.

Late last year, Valdez was caught in Nogales and admitted to a separate marijuana trafficking conviction. The crossing attempt violated the terms of his parole in that case. Court records show he told the judge he had crossed into Nogales, Arizona to buy clothes to re-sell in Mexico.

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A federal judge sentenced him last week to 77 months for the illegal entries and another 12 months for the parole violation.

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Border & Immigration Immigration
Michel Marizco
Senior Field Correspondent Michel Marizco (Tucson) has reported along the Southwest border for the past decade, most of that in Arizona and Sonora. Before joining the Fronteras Desk, he produced stories in the field for CNN Madrid, the BBC, 60 Minutes Australia, and the CBC. His work now focuses on transnational trafficking syndicates, immigration, federal law enforcement and those weird, wild stories that make the U.S.-Mexico border such an inherently fascinating region. He is a contributing author on Shared Responsibility: U.S.-Mexico Policy Options for Confronting Organized Crime and an occasional writer at High Country News. In his spare time, he works with Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, assisting in the ongoing investigations of journalist killings in Mexico.
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