A border supervisor is supposed to spot the loopholes. Federal prosecutors say Andres Wilkinson allegedly became one by mixing romance, family ties, and immigration paperwork in a case that now has CBP answering questions about its own.
What You Should Know
The DOJ charged CBP supervisor Andres Wilkinson in the Southern District of Texas with allegedly harboring a woman who overstayed a visa. A criminal complaint says investigators also collected information indicating she is his niece and married to another man.
Wilkinson, a 52-year-old U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in Laredo, Texas, is accused of providing housing and other support to a woman federal officials say is in the United States unlawfully after overstaying a temporary visa. Prosecutors say the alleged relationship triggered a monthslong internal investigation by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, and ended with federal charges.
A Supervisor, a Visa Overstay, and a House in Laredo
According to the Justice Department and a criminal complaint summarized by CBS News, the woman entered the U.S. on a temporary visa in August 2023, then overstayed. By February 2026, investigators detained her, and she admitted she had been living with Wilkinson since August 2024.
The case is built around a straightforward allegation with unusually messy personal stakes. Prosecutors say Wilkinson was not just dating the woman. They say officials collected information indicating she is also his niece, and that she was married to another man.
In public corruption cases, the tension is often about money. Here, the alleged currency is access. Wilkinson, the complaint says, worked inside the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws. The DOJ says he used his personal resources to make life easier for someone the government describes as unlawfully present.
The DOJ described the support this way: “financial support, including housing, credit cards, assistance with financial obligations, and access to vehicle.” Prosecutors also allege the pair traveled together through Border Patrol checkpoints near the Texas border, a detail that reads like a stress test of whether a federal supervisor believed his own day job rules would ever reach his passenger seat.
Prosecutors further claim he knew exactly what he was doing. The DOJ says Wilkinson was “aware of her unlawful immigration status yet maintained a romantic relationship with her.”
What the Complaint Says, and What It Does Not
On paper, the government is charging a form of harboring. In plain language, prosecutors are arguing that Wilkinson allegedly helped someone stay in the U.S. despite her immigration status. The public filing lays out a picture of cohabitation and financial support, not a one-off ride, not a casual dating arrangement, and not ignorance about visa status.
But the complaint also includes details that raise a different set of questions. Investigators, it says, collected information indicating the woman is Wilkinson’s niece. The complaint also says she is married to another man, and that the husband filed a green card application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on her behalf in January 2024.
Then the timeline starts to bend. The complaint says the husband canceled that petition in April 2025. A month later, CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility observed Wilkinson, the woman, and her daughter together and investigated their relationship for months.
That internal angle matters because it shows this was not a single-agent hunch. According to the complaint, OPR investigators concluded the woman was the daughter of a man named J. Santos Garcia-Moreno, whom Wilkinson had listed as his brother in his 2023 background investigation. That detail, buried inside a personnel process, is now a major building block in a federal criminal case.
What is not in the public reporting so far is just as notable. There is no public statement from Wilkinson responding to the allegations, and no on-record explanation for the supposed family relationship described in the complaint. CBS News reported it contacted an attorney listed as Wilkinson’s lawyer and did not receive an immediate response. CBP also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, CBS reported.
That silence leaves the official narrative largely one-sided at this stage: the government says it has the paperwork, the observation, and the admission of cohabitation. Wilkinson has not publicly laid out a defense, and the case is still at an early procedural phase.
The Real Stakes for CBP
For Wilkinson personally, the consequences are concrete. The DOJ says that if he is convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.
For CBP, the exposure is reputational and institutional, and it lands in a politically combustible zone. The agency sells competence and control. It promises both to lawmakers and to the public that it can assess risk, vet its workforce, and enforce immigration laws consistently. A case alleging that a supervisor tasked with enforcing those laws provided support to someone described as unlawfully present cuts straight through that pitch.
It also spotlights a power dynamic that rarely gets said out loud. A CBP supervisor is not just a federal employee. In a border city, that role can carry social and practical leverage: access to information, familiarity with checkpoints and enforcement patterns, and the credibility that comes with a uniform and a badge. The complaint’s allegations, if proven, suggest a supervisor allegedly used the stability of that position to cushion the consequences for someone without lawful status.
CBP has its own oversight machinery, and this case emphasizes that OPR can run lengthy investigations. The complaint describes OPR observing Wilkinson, the woman, and her daughter, then investigating for months. In other words, the case appears to have moved from internal scrutiny to a federal criminal charge, rather than exploding on social media first and getting cleaned up later.
Still, the contradiction is hard to miss. The DOJ says Wilkinson was promoted in 2021 to a supervisory role where his duties included overseeing the enforcement of immigration laws. The government is now accusing him of undermining that same enforcement in his private life.
What Happens Next
According to the DOJ, Wilkinson made an initial court appearance and remained in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for February 13th, 2026. That hearing, and any bail arguments that come with it, will be an early preview of how aggressively prosecutors plan to argue risk, flight, and the seriousness of the allegations.
From there, the case will likely hinge on documentation and credibility. Prosecutors have already pointed to the woman’s visa history, the allegedly shared residence, and the financial support they say Wilkinson provided. The defense, once it speaks in court, will have options: challenging intent, challenging what “harboring” means in this factual context, contesting the family connection described as “indicating,” and disputing the government’s interpretation of travel through checkpoints.
For CBP, the next question is administrative as much as legal. Even before a verdict, agencies often face pressure to clarify whether an accused employee remains employed, suspended, reassigned, or subject to internal discipline. CBS News reported CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment, leaving that status unclear in public reporting.
In the meantime, the case sits at the intersection of policy and personal behavior, which is why it is likely to travel fast. A border supervisor accused of harboring someone unlawfully present is already a loaded allegation. Add the complaint’s claims about family ties and a separate marriage, and it becomes a different kind of story, one that forces every institution involved to explain what it knew, when it knew it, and what it did about it.
