Man wanted for Texas murder in 2000 caught attempting to re-enter at border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested a 47-year-old male attempting to re-enter the country after confirming he was a suspect in a decades-old murder case.

After arriving from Mexico, U.S. citizen Rigoberto Resendez was apprehended at the Hidalgo International Bridge on May 22. He has been wanted since June 2000 and is charged with murder, a first-degree felony in Texas.

When Resendez arrived at the bridge, he was immediately secured after a CBP officer discovered he was a possible match to an arrest warrant, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website.

“CBP officers conducting primary examinations who check an arriving traveler’s name against national law enforcement databases may discover the traveler is the subject of a possible warrant,” said Rick Pauza, a public affairs officer with CBP based in Laredo. “The traveler is promptly secured and escorted to secondary inspection for additional inspection.”

Once the traveler is in secondary inspection, officers confirm the person’s identity through collection and verification of biometrics. They also confirm the person is the subject of the active warrant with the originating law enforcement agency, Pauza said.

“On a typical day in fiscal year 2022,” Pauza said, “CBP officers conducted 41 arrests of wanted criminals at U.S. ports of entry.”

To protect the nation’s border from criminal offenses, CBP has the authority to collect passenger name record information on all travelers entering or leaving the United States, according to the CBP website.