By MES Dispatch staff
The Briefing
• A woman shot by a Border Patrol agent during an immigration stop in Portland, Oregon, pleaded guilty to illegally entering the U.S. and was sentenced to one year of probation.
• Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras appeared by video from an immigration detention facility for the federal hearing.
• The probation sentence includes location monitoring and a nighttime curfew; she will not serve time in prison.
• Court filings say the agent fired after the vehicle struck a Border Patrol rental and posed a threat.
• A co-defendant faces separate federal charges and remains in custody ahead of a trial.
PORTLAND, OR — A woman wounded by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during an immigration enforcement stop in Portland, Oregon, pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally entering the United States and received a one-year probation sentence, according to federal court records.
Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras appeared by video from an immigration detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, for the hearing before a federal judge in Portland. As part of the probation, she will be subject to location monitoring and a nighttime curfew but will not serve prison time.
Federal filings describe that the Border Patrol agent fired two shots during a Jan. 8 immigration stop after the pickup truck Zambrano-Contreras was in repeatedly backed into a vehicle rented by agents and struck an agent. No surveillance footage of the incident was found, according to the filings.
Luis Nino-Moncada, the vehicle’s driver, has been indicted on charges including aggravated assault on a federal employee and damaging federal property and remains in custody with a trial set for March.
Zambrano-Contreras and Nino-Moncada allegedly entered the U.S. illegally in 2023 and 2022, respectively, and were identified in court documents as having some affiliation with a Venezuelan gang; the defendant was also ordered to avoid areas associated with prostitution as a condition of probation.