A Mexican national who told federal agents he was looking for his godchildren is instead facing charges of smuggling two minors through downtown El Paso, in a case federal prosecutors say fits a pattern of escalating border enforcement across West Texas. Marco Antonio Dominguez-Barranco presented himself to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Paso del Norte Port of Entry, where agents suspected he may have been connected to a recent smuggling event involving two children.
According to court documents cited by KTSM 9 News, a criminal complaint affidavit alleges Dominguez-Barranco participated in the smuggling event and planned to transport the children to Denver. Dominguez-Barranco, who is also known by the alias Isaias Salvador Gonzalez Jr., is an undocumented migrant from Mexico who, per the affidavit, had returned illegally to the United States after previously crossing back into Mexico. He used a passport bearing his own photo but another person's name and birth date, the affidavit states. He now faces charges of immigrant smuggling involving children, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
In a separate case tied to the same port of entry, Erick Manuel Martinez-Mendez, an undocumented migrant from Cuba, allegedly made misrepresentations to gain entry to the United States at the Paso del Norte crossing in El Paso. Per the affidavit, Martinez-Mendez claimed he lived in El Paso and had been in Mexico visiting his hospitalized mother. He presented a Texas birth certificate and a copy of a Texas identification card bearing another individual's name and date of birth, the affidavit says, but a fingerprint scan revealed his true identity.
A Criminal History That Spans Multiple States
Martinez-Mendez's record, as detailed in court filings, includes convictions for robbery, home invasion, and armed kidnapping, for which he was sentenced to 17 years in prison. He also has convictions for third-degree grand theft and dealing in stolen property, resulting in a 5-year sentence, and a conviction for aggravated battery of a person detained in prison, which carried a 6-year sentence. More recently, he was convicted of smuggling contraband into prison and resisting an officer or battery on law enforcement, receiving a sentence of 4 years and 8 months. Martinez-Mendez was removed from the United States in November 2025, according to the affidavit.
These two prosecutions are part of a much larger wave of federal border enforcement. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas filed 292 new immigration and immigration-related criminal cases between August 7 and 13, 2026, according to the agency. Officials say the charges brought in that period targeted alien smugglers and illegal aliens with past convictions for DWIs, violent crimes, thefts, and prior removals.
Part of a Sustained Federal Crackdown
The case filings are being prosecuted under Operation Take Back America, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative launched in March 2025 to increase border prosecutions, target cartels, and dismantle transnational criminal organizations, per the Department of Justice. The pace has been relentless in recent months: the district filed 271 new immigration cases from July 31 through August 6, 250 cases the week before that, and 297 cases in a single week at the end of May and start of June, showing weekly filings consistently approaching or exceeding 250 to 300 cases throughout the summer.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas covers 68 counties in central and western Texas, spanning nearly 93,000 square miles, including San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso, and oversees 660 miles of the U.S.–Mexico border, according to the Department of Justice. Under federal law, bringing in or attempting to smuggle an unauthorized alien carries a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison per individual under 8 U.S.C. § 1324, a penalty that can rise to 20 years if the offense creates a risk of bodily injury or death, per Law.Cornell.Edu. Illegal reentry after removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 carries a baseline sentence of up to two years, but that maximum climbs to 10 years for defendants with prior felony convictions and up to 20 years for those with prior aggravated felony convictions.
A Recurring Pattern at the Same Crossing
The Paso del Norte Port of Entry, which operates four vehicle lanes and dedicated pedestrian inspection lanes in downtown El Paso, is one of the busiest land crossings between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It has repeatedly been the site of similar fraudulent entry attempts. In mid-July, federal prosecutors filed criminal misrepresentation and elusion charges against another undocumented migrant at the same port who had been deported eight times and tried to walk in alongside a vehicle moving toward an inspection booth, the Department of Justice reported.
The crossing has also drawn scrutiny over corruption within its own ranks. In March, a former CBP officer stationed at the port was sentenced in El Paso federal court to 10 years in prison after admitting to taking over $700,000 in bribes to wave undocumented migrants and narcotics through inspection lanes, as Hoodline previously reported.
The child smuggling allegation against Dominguez-Barranco also lands amid growing local concern about minors caught up in border trafficking. Regional advocacy group Paso del Norte Center of Hope reported in July that it handles between 45 and 50 human trafficking cases per month across the Borderland, with clients averaging just 14 years old, according to KVIA's reporting cited in earlier Hoodline coverage. That backdrop underscores why federal prosecutors have treated cases involving children as a priority under the broader enforcement push.
