Border Hopper Gets Time, Back to Border

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BELGRADE, MT – Juan Diego Rojas-Meneses, 20, won’t be seeing Montana again anytime soon. The Mexican national was sentenced today to the 219 days he’d already spent behind bars, then immediately turned over to U.S. Border Patrol for deportation.

Rojas-Meneses pleaded guilty last November to illegally re-entering the country. Cops hit a Belgrade residence August 12th, 2025, and found him. He admitted to being in the US illegally, lacking any paperwork. A check of records revealed this wasn’t his first trip through the system – he’d been kicked out through El Paso, Texas twice last year, September 1st and September 23rd, 2024.

He didn’t bother getting permission from anyone to come back. Assistant U.S. Attorney Zeno Baucus handled the prosecution, with the Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations, Belgrade PD, and Montana Division of Criminal Investigations all involved in the bust.

Federal officials are framing the case as part of “Operation Take Back America,” a broad initiative aimed at ramping up border enforcement and tackling transnational criminal groups. Sounds like a lot of rhetoric, but for Rojas-Meneses, it means a one-way ticket home.