A man from Honduras pleaded guilty to falsely claiming to be an unaccompanied minor while trying to enter the United States.
On Thursday morning, 18-year-old Elger Fabricio Cotto Navarro went before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ignacio Torteya in Brownsville, Texas, where he pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to a federal officer. After the hearing, Torteya ordered that Cotto Navarro be held without bond pending his sentencing hearing in June. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, Cotto Navarro could face as much as five years in prison for the charge.
The case began on February 2, when Cotto Navarro surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents in Roma, Texas, shortly after he crossed the Rio Grande. At the time of his apprehension, Cotto Navarro told authorities that he was a minor. The agents turned him over to the Department of Health and Human Services, which handles cases dealing with unaccompanied minors, a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed.
DHHS employees took Cotto Navarro to a migrant shelter for minors in Harlingen, Texas, called Compass Connections. There, a case manager interviewed him, and he claimed to have been born in May 2006 and that he was a minor from Honduras. However, federal authorities were able to get a copy of his birth certificate from the Honduran Consulate and were able to learn that he was in fact, an adult.
During a second interview, Cotto Navarro continued to claim that he was a minor and provided authorities with a sworn affidavit claiming so, court documents revealed. Soon after, officers arrested him. Once in custody, Cotto Navarro admitted that he had lied about his age and that he was an adult male.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with the Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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