Migrant found competent to stand trial for assault on border agents

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A judge has ruled a foreign national is mentally fit to stand trial for allegedly assaulting border agents at an El Paso migrant processing center.

Aland Donaldo Martinez Vasquez is scheduled to appear next Monday at a detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Miguel Angel Torres in El Paso.

The hearing was on pause for months after Martinez’s attorney suggested the defendant was unable to understand the proceedings against him and could not assist in his own defense. But Torres on June 4 ruled there wasn’t sufficient evidence that Martinez suffered from psychosis, mental illness or defect, or doesn’t have a reasonable degree of rational understanding.

The charges stem from a March 7 disturbance at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection soft-sided processing center in Northeast El Paso. Court records show a Border Patrol agent by the last name of Mendoza tended to an individual who “became disruptive” to other migrants in a holding area.

The agent escorted the individual, Martinez, to an isolation “pod.” However, Martinez allegedly demanded to make a telephone call and began breaking the Plexiglass door of the holding room. Agents directed private security guards at the facility to restrain Martinez to a wheelchair, but the migrant kicked, screamed and turned the wheelchair on its side multiple times, federal court records show.

A supervisor ordered Martinez transferred to the Border Patrol Station and processing center near Hondo Pass Drive. It was during that transfer that the alleged assault on a public servant occurred.

According to a federal complaint affidavit submitted by an El Paso Office FBI agent, two Border Patrol agents wheeled Martinez out of the soft-sided facility and several others attempted to place him in the backseat of a pickup for transport.

As a border agent by the last name of Regan was buckling him up, Martinez allegedly tried to bite him. When he could not sink his teeth into Regan, Martinez allegedly spit at two agents by the last names of Gill and Gomez, the federal complaint states.

Martinez allegedly kicked the front seats of the pickup on the way to the Border Patrol station and continued to resist until he was placed in a padded cell, the complaint alleges.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office requested Martinez be held without bail until the final outcome of his case. It cited the “crime of violence,” Martinez being a foreign national (his nationality is not specified), and having no ties to the El Paso community.

On June 4, the same day that Torres found him competent for trial, Martinez’s attorney entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of his client and waived arraignment.

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