A CBP biometric screening arrest at the Del Rio International Bridge on 15 July led to the detention of a US citizen found to have an outstanding felony warrant for aggravated sexual assault of a child, underlining how border biometric infrastructure is increasingly functioning as a fugitive-detection tool alongside its primary customs role.
Juan Manuel Gomez, 58, was pulled into secondary inspection during what would otherwise have been a routine crossing. Biometric verification run against the FBI‘s National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a centralised automated database of criminal justice information available to federal, state and local law enforcement, flagged a warrant issued by the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office in Del Rio, Texas. Officers arrested Gomez on the spot, and the Del Rio Police Department transported him to the Val Verde Correctional Facility.
CBP Biometric Screening Arrest Draws Statement from Port Director
Port Director Liliana Flores of the Del Rio Port of Entry said the case ‘highlights the critical role CBP plays in protecting the most vulnerable among us.’ Flores added: ‘The apprehension of individuals wanted for heinous crimes, such as the sexual assault of a child, underscores our dedication to public safety and our collaborative efforts with law enforcement partners to protect our communities.’
The NCIC sits at the centre of these detections. By cross-referencing a traveller’s biometric data against its records in real time, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers can surface outstanding warrants within seconds of a traveller presenting at a port of entry, regardless of whether that person is arriving from abroad or attempting to depart.
Del Rio Arrest Part of a Broader Pattern at Ports of Entry
The Gomez case is one of several high-profile detections CBP has reported in recent months. In May, officers arrested a Honduran national attempting to board a flight to Honduras at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport; that individual faced the same category of felony child sex offence charges. Also in May, officers at the Laredo Port of Entry in Texas seized 14 packages of ketamine and cocaine with a street value of $455,000 from an American traveller during a secondary inspection.
Cash seizures have also featured prominently. In April, CBP confiscated $44,000 in undeclared currency from a traveller bound for Cancun, Mexico, at Philadelphia International Airport. In July, a further $53,000 in cash was seized from a traveller bound for Kingston, Jamaica. US law requires travellers to declare any amount exceeding $10,000 with the Department of the Treasury; carrying large sums is not itself illegal, but failure to declare triggers enforcement action.
Scale matters here. CBP enforcement statistics show that total enforcement encounters across the Office of Field Operations and US Border Patrol reached 2,901,142 in fiscal year (FY) 2024, falling to 691,906 in FY 2025 and standing at 280,656 through to June in FY 2026. According to USAFacts, 1.1% of people apprehended at US borders in FY 2024 had a prior criminal conviction, a figure that, applied against the FY 2024 total, points to a substantial number of individuals with criminal histories moving through ports of entry each year. The same USAFacts data show that approximately 3,327 pounds of fentanyl had been seized at US borders as of April 2026, reflecting the scale of the contraband challenge running alongside the warrant-detection workload.
CBP has said its intensified scrutiny at all ports of entry reflects a commitment to identifying both fugitives and illicit goods. Officers have noted that biometric checks, rather than document review alone, are now the most reliable mechanism for surfacing individuals with serious outstanding warrants, because document fraud cannot defeat a biometric match against NCIC records.
What Heightened CBP Biometric Screening Means for the Trade
For travel agents, carriers and tour operators routing clients through US ports of entry, the operational implication is straightforward: secondary inspection timelines can extend significantly when biometric checks flag a discrepancy or a warrant. CBP has indicated that travellers should expect thorough inspections to remain standard, particularly where document discrepancies arise during routine questioning.
The Gomez case demonstrates that CBP biometric screening arrest procedures apply equally to outbound and inbound travellers, and to US citizens as well as foreign nationals. Ports of entry are functioning, in effect, as the final checkpoint in a networked law-enforcement system, and that is unlikely to change as the agency continues to expand its use of biometric technology at the border.
