
Ron Welch
Muskingum County Prosecutor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 24, 2025
Muskingum County Not Immune to Border Issues
Border Security Starts at Home
Last week, Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch joined other Ohio prosecutors and additional public officials in touring the United States-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas in a trip facilitated by U.S. Representative Troy Balderson.
Prosecutor Welch described the experience as troubling, and eye-opening.
During the visit, agents with the US Department of Homeland Security showed the Ohio visitors the secured, and unsecured area of the border. A Columbian person with a child was observed illegally crossing the border and was taken into custody immediately. When asked where they were ultimately headed the mother answered “Ohio.” Where the border wall ended, a large section of buildings, still part of Juarez Mexico, housed numerous connected persons on the lookout for border patrol activity. The only thing separating them from the United States interior being rocky, hilly terrain.
This week some border enforcement priorities changed. Agents with the Central Ohio Drug Task Force, operating on a tip from the US Department of Homeland Security, were able to conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle in Muskingum County. The vehicle was suspected of conducting illegal human smuggling based on numerous trips from the Arizona border to the New York and Pennsylvania area.
As a consequence of the stop, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were able to take into custody five illegal aliens. One, Adalberto Calixto Tolentino, had been issued a California driver’s license, despite his illegal presence in the United States. Tolentino was found in possession of a late-model vehicle, and around $9,000 in United States currency.
From Prosecutor Welch’s trip to the border, border patrol and customs confirmed that human trafficking, drug trafficking, and human smuggling are intertwined activities, all coordinated by Mexican drug cartels, who profit off decreased security border of the United States, selling women and children into sexual slavery, or costing the lives of greater than 250,000 Americans every year through narcotics poisoning.
The Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office is proud to work in conjunction with our law enforcement partners in this and surrounding counties, as well as USDHS and ICE in safeguarding this community and our nation.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this release indicated that US. Rep. Balderson attended this border trip. Rep. Balderson helped arrange the trip but was in Washington attending to his duties during the visit.
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