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A massive immigration enforcement operation in southeast Texas netted over 800 illegal immigrants, including gang members, convicted murderers, child predators and foreign fugitives, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The agency said the arrests were a result of a week-long operation that ran from Aug. 17 to Aug. 23, focused on enhancing public safety in southeast Texas after the region was heavily impacted by former President Joe Biden’s open-border policies.
In total, 822 illegal aliens were arrested, including five transnational gang members, seven child predators and three criminal aliens convicted of homicide-related offenses, according to an ICE statement. The agency said that 330 of those arrested have previously been ordered removed from the U.S. and approximately 112 were previously deported and illegally reentered the U.S. at least once.
“During the past four years, transnational gang members, foreign fugitives and other violent criminal aliens took advantage of the crisis at our southern border to illegally enter the country,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations acting Field Office Director Gabriel Martinez.
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Martinez said that many of these criminal illegal aliens “remained in the Houston area and have gone on to wreak havoc in our local communities.”
One illegal arrested in the operation, 54-year-old Mexican national Alejandro Perez Miramontes, has previously been deported 12 times. Perez Miramontes has been convicted eight times for illegal reentry, four times for illegal entry and twice each for robbery, larceny and burglary, and once each for trespassing and evading arrest, according to ICE.
The agency said that among those arrested was also Salvadoran national William Alexander Telles Amaya, a 35-year-old criminal alien and habitual child predator. ICE said Telles Amaya has been convicted three times for child sex offenses, including aggravated sexual assault of a child in 2006, failure to register as a sex offender in 2015 and sexual indecency with a minor in July.
Several others also had recent child sex offenses on their records, including Francisco Eduardo Bonilla, a 37-year-old Salvadoran national, who was convicted of sexual indecency with a minor in Harris County, Texas, in February.
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Guatemalan national Jorge Eliseo Torres-Soto, 30, was also arrested in the operation after being convicted of sexual assault of a child in October 2024.
Manuel Ivan Castillo Estrada, a 36-year-old Mexican national, was also arrested after previously being deported three times and being convicted of alien smuggling and sexually assaulting a minor in February 2024.
Another, Zimbabwe national Lloyd Tinashe Hwehwe, 36, had habitual DWI charges, including a conviction of driving while intoxicated and intoxication manslaughter in 2015. After being removed from the U.S., he illegally reentered the country and was convicted of a second DWI in 2024.
Another child sex offender, Carlos Vega-Ramirez, 38, had been deported and convicted of sexual indecency with a minor, enticement of a minor for indecent purposes, DWI, fleeing police, forgery and illegal reentry.
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Salvadoran national Hemerlindo Antonio Ascencio-Merino, 53, was also arrested in the roundup. He is wanted in El Salvador for aggravated homicide and illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 in an attempt to evade prosecution, according to the agency.
ICE also arrested Cruz Leandro Martinez Leiva, a 25-year-old MS-13 gang member from El Salvador, who was convicted of robbery and armed carjacking in October 2018.
The agency said the operation was a part of the Trump administration’s efforts to restore public safety by targeting the “worst of the worst” criminal aliens and immigration law violators. Several other federal agencies participated in the operation as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Fox News Digital reached out to a spokesperson for Biden but did not immediately receive a response.
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