Immigration enforcement activity in the tiny border village of Candelaria has led to the detention of longtime residents and left the isolated community shaken, according to reporting by Big Bend Sentinel.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 19, 2025, six patrol vehicles entered Candelaria, an unincorporated settlement along the Rio Grande about 50 miles northwest of Presidio. With emergency lights on, officers surrounded an RV parked near the town’s church.
A group of officers representing U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Army and the Presidio County Sheriff’s Office approached the trailer. Presidio County Deputy Jaime Sanchez knocked on the door and ordered the occupants to open it, according to his written report.
Inside were Juana Alvarez Rodriguez, a woman in her early 50s, and her 15-year-old son, both asleep at the time. Sanchez wrote that he had been contacted by a Border Patrol agent regarding a report of an armed man attempting to break into the trailer.
Alvarez told officers that everything was fine. Sanchez reported that he asked to enter the RV to ensure no one else was inside. Alvarez later expressed alarm at being awakened by multiple armed officers in the middle of the night in a remote area, according to the report.
Officers instructed Alvarez and her son to keep their hands visible while they searched the trailer. No other individuals were found. Sanchez wrote that Alvarez told him the family had two toy guns, which he described as realistic-looking, semi-automatic toys.
Border Patrol agents then asked Alvarez for identification. Her son provided a U.S. birth certificate, but Alvarez had only a Mexican voter identification card, according to court records. She told agents she had lived in the trailer for nine years.
Agents informed Alvarez she would be arrested. She asked to take her son with her, saying she had no nearby family. The request was denied. Court records show she urged her son not to cry as they hugged before she was taken into custody.
Candelaria is one of the most remote communities in Presidio County, with only a few dozen residents and limited access to basic services. The nearest gas stations and grocery stores are more than an hour away. For centuries, the village has been closely connected to San Antonio del Bravo, a small community just across the river in Chihuahua.
That connection was disrupted after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security following the Sept. 11 attacks, when informal border crossings in places like Candelaria were shut down. A footbridge once linking the two towns was destroyed by Border Patrol in 2008, according to Big Bend Sentinel, though residents continued to cross the river using improvised routes.
Immigration enforcement in the area intensified in 2025 following President Trump’s renewed calls for mass deportations. A U.S. Army deployment arrived in the spring, bringing armored vehicles and increased surveillance along the River Road corridor.
According to Big Bend Sentinel, Army personnel assisting Border Patrol with detection and surveillance were involved in at least two arrests of longtime local residents last year.
One of those arrests occurred Nov. 16, when Rene Peña Santieseban, a father of two who had lived and worked in the United States for about 40 years and graduated from Presidio High School, was apprehended after crossing the river back into Candelaria from San Antonio del Bravo.
Peña was spotted by an Army patrol positioned on a hillside above the town, according to Big Bend Sentinel. Border Patrol agents were called, questioned him and took him into custody on a charge of illegal entry.
Federal court records show Peña had no criminal history and one prior encounter with Border Patrol in 2009, when he was granted voluntary departure through a port of entry in El Paso. The misdemeanor charge was resolved two days later with a sentence of time served, but as a Mexican citizen without legal status, Peña was transferred to immigration detention rather than released.
Family members told Big Bend Sentinel they did not know where Peña was being held, and attempts to locate him through Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases were unsuccessful.
Both Peña and Alvarez were charged under federal law with misdemeanor illegal entry, a charge that is routinely processed quickly in the Western District of Texas. Alvarez’s case, however, took an unusual turn.
Her attorney, Federal Public Defender Christopher Carlin, filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing that her constitutional rights were violated during what he described as a warrantless, nonconsensual search and seizure.
Carlin questioned the justification for the initial search, citing inconsistencies in reports describing the incident as a possible break-in, a welfare check and a suspicious armed person. In a rural ranching community like Candelaria, Carlin argued, the presence of firearms is not unusual.
Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez told Big Bend Sentinel that the actions of his deputy and the Border Patrol agents were justified, saying officers must treat reports involving firearms with caution regardless of location.
Carlin also criticized officers for leaving Alvarez’s teenage son alone in the remote community after her arrest, writing that it demonstrated a lack of concern for the family’s welfare.
Alvarez was scheduled to go to trial in late August, but a federal judge granted a motion to dismiss shortly before proceedings were set to begin. Afterward, her whereabouts became unclear. Court records listed her son at an address in Midland but provided no further details.
When Big Bend Sentinel visited Candelaria recently, few residents were willing to speak. Streets were largely empty, and those encountered said little about the arrests.
An armored Army vehicle was observed positioned on a hillside overlooking the town near its water infrastructure, with soldiers monitoring the area across the river toward San Antonio del Bravo.
The village was quiet, but the presence of military vehicles and the absence of longtime residents underscored how much had changed in a place long defined by its isolation and cross-border ties, according to Big Bend Sentinel.
Image Credit: Presidio Democrats
