U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 200 illegal immigrants who have been charged or convicted of sex offenses involving children. The 214 arrests, all in the Houston area, occurred over the last six months.
ICE explained that the surge in arrests is due to a “whole-of-government approach” through the Trump administration’s establishment of “multiagency targeting teams.”
“Bringing together the resources and expertise of the entire federal law enforcement community to confront the overwhelming surge of illegal immigration that we saw over the past four years has resulted in the arrest and removal of historic numbers of violent criminal aliens, transnational gang members and child sex offenders,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Acting Field Office Director Paul McBride said in a statement.
“While we still have a long way to go to truly get this crisis under control, the strides we have made in just six months to make our local communities safer are substantial, and our officers continue to work tirelessly every day to get the worst of the worst criminal aliens out of Southeast Texas to return our communities to places we can all enjoy,” McBride continued.
Several of those arrested and highlighted by ICE have since been removed to Mexico. These include Jesus Gutierrez Mireles, described as a “67-year-old, three-time deported criminal alien,” Jose Guadalupe Meza, a 40-year-old migrant deported four times, and Sergio Rolando Galvan Guerrero, a 45-year-old migrant deported three times.
ICE’s update comes as the agency launched a Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) earlier this month in Houston to “combat emerging threats from transnational criminal organizations in Southeast Texas,” the agency said.
