Child predators, gang members, human traffickers deported in major Texas city ICE roundup
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Child predators, gang members and human traffickers were among the 142 criminal illegals deported to Mexico by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officials in the Houston area in just the last two weeks.
According to an ICE statement on Tuesday, the criminal immigrants were deported between May 19 and May 30. Those deported had been convicted of a total of 473 criminal offenses and had illegally entered the country a combined 480 times.
The statement said that among those deported, 11 of the illegals were convicted child predators, eight were “documented gang members” and one had illegally entered the country 21 times.
Additionally, among the deported illegals were 43 aggravated assault and domestic violence-related convictions, 48 drug trafficking or drug possession convictions, 22 human trafficking or human smuggling convictions and one conviction for making terroristic threats.
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One of the illegals, Alejandro Aguilar Vazquez, a 45-year-old Mexican national, had been convicted three times of cruelty towards a child, according to ICE.
Another, Luis Angel Garcia-Contreras, a 40-year-old criminal immigrant from Mexico and documented member of the Surenos 13 gang, has illegally entered the U.S. 21 times and has been convicted of illegal entry four times.
Benito Charqueno Zavala, a 60-year-old Mexican national, was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child.
In the statement, Bret Bradford, ICE ERO Houston Field Office director, said, “Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly.”
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“For the past few years, there was virtually no deterrent to illegally entering the country,” he said. “As a result, millions of illegal aliens poured into the country including violent criminal aliens, child predators, transnational gang members and foreign fugitives.”
As a state that comprises over 60% of the U.S.-Mexico border, Texas was among the states most heavily impacted by the immigration crisis in the last several years.
Bradford said that “many of these dangerous criminal aliens went on to prey on law-abiding residents in local communities right here in Southeast Texas.”
“This is just a small snapshot of those efforts as it only focuses on deportations to one country over the course of a two-week period, but it gives you an idea of how big this problem really is,” he explained.
Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, explained the scale of the still-ongoing crisis in Texas and across the nation. He told Fox News Digital that the deportation of the 142 criminal illegal immigrants in Houston “reveals a far deeper crisis unfolding across our nation—one that poses a direct threat to public safety, national security, and the rule of law.”
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He said the 142 represents “only a sliver of the 650,000 criminal aliens currently on ICE’s Non-Detained Docket, free to move through American communities with impunity.”
“Texas has become the front line in this crisis, not just geographically, but constitutionally,” he added, explaining that “nearly 100 counties in Texas have issued disaster declarations or formally declared an invasion, not for political theater, but because cartel operations, weaponized mass migration, and the release of violent offenders have made every community in Texas vulnerable.”
“This is not a policy disagreement. It is a public safety emergency,” he added.
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Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, told Fox News Digital that President Donald Trump is “stepping up where Joe Biden failed.”
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While many other states are resisting ICE operations, Mahaleris said that Texas “will continue to assist the Trump Administration in arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants.”
“President Trump’s deportation efforts are making Texas safer,” he said. “Governor Abbott is grateful to finally have an administration upholding the rule of law in our country.”