Sign up for The Brief , The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

A federal jury and judge acquitted a 21-year-old woman from Peru on Thursday of illegally entering a national defense area and military reservation after she crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas last month, in what lawyers say is the first trial of an immigrant since the Trump administration declared parts of the New Mexico and Texas border as a military zone.

Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez was detained by soldiers and arrested by a Border Patrol agent on May 12 after they found her alone sitting next to the gate on a bollard wall near Tornillo, 40 miles east of El Paso.

“Hopefully, this sets the tone for the federal government,” said Veronica Teresa

See Full Page