FREDERICK, Md. — A woman previously deported to her native country of Ecuador, only to illegally re-enter the United States three months later is back behind bars.
Vanessa Yalixa Munoz-Baque, 31, was originally deported in August 2023. She returned November of that year, and ultimately settled in Frederick, Maryland.
On September 11, 2024, Munoz-Baque was arrested and initially charged with attempted murder, for stabbing a man and holding a knife to his neck.
Munoz-Baque eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree assault resulting in a three-year jail sentence.
The stabbing tipped off federal immigration authorities about Munoz-Baque's presence in the U.S.
A judge has now sentenced her to six months in federal prison.
Shortly before that punishment was handed down, the DOJ also indicted Roberto Lopez-Perez, of Honduras, who was located in Talbot County, Maryland after already having been deported from the U.S.
Meanwhile, a third undocumented migrant from Guatemala named Desiderio Eliceo Perez Gonzalez recently pleaded guilty after illegally crossing the U.S. Mexican border in Texas before being discovered in Maryland.
Perez Gonzalez has not yet been sentenced.
