A DNA match has led to the arrest of a 53-year-old man in connection with the 2013 sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl in Las Cruces. Juan Pablo Delgado-Palma was arrested on October 29 and charged with one count of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, a second-degree felony, more than a decade after the attack was first reported.
Delgado-Palma is being held without bond at the Doña Ana County Detention Center, according to KFOX. The case traces back to December 2013, when the girl reported that she had been sexually assaulted in a drainage canal near North Main Street, according to police cited by the station.
A Years-Long Wait for a Match
At the time, the teenager told investigators she did not know her attacker and could only offer a limited physical description, the outlet reports. A sexual assault examination did produce a DNA sample, and investigators submitted it to the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, but officials said it did not initially match any profile on file — leaving the case unresolved for years.
That changed in 2025, when Delgado-Palma's DNA was collected while he was detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Albuquerque. Authorities said that sample was entered into CODIS and matched evidence from the Las Cruces case. Detectives later determined that the physical description the victim had given years earlier was consistent with Delgado-Palma's characteristics, authorities said, according to the station's report.
DNA Collection at ICE Facilities Under Scrutiny
The case lands amid a broader surge in DNA collection from immigration detainees nationwide. Per Wired, the CODIS detainee index reached 3,345,692 profiles by December 2025, growing by roughly 995,000 that year alone. Georgetown researchers estimate ICE may have been responsible for as many as 919,908 of those new profiles in a single year, the outlet reports.
Wired also points to an ICE presentation that counted 69 confirmed CODIS hits from samples submitted by the agency's Enforcement and Removal Operations division over roughly six months in 2021, with matches tied to cases involving sexual offenses, homicide, and missing persons. The FBI, which oversees the broader National DNA Index System, says NDIS draws DNA profiles from participating federal, state, and local forensic laboratories.
Another Recent Las Cruces Case
Another Recent Las Cruces Case The Delgado-Palma arrest comes about a year after a separate case in the same city drew local attention. An 18-year-old Las Cruces man, Anthony Yandel Delgado, was arrested on October 14 and charged the following day with five felony counts tied to an alleged assault of a 17-year-old relative, according to Organ Mountain News. That case is unrelated and involves different allegations and a different defendant.
No additional details on a court hearing date or Delgado-Palma's response to the charge have been released. The case remains active as it moves through the Doña Ana County court system.
