During a week-long operation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and removal officers in Houston apprehended 422 suspected illegal immigrants.
During the operation, ICE officers targeted some of the most dangerous criminals, including an illegal immigrant wanted in Colombia on murder charges.
Fox News was exclusively embedded with authorities for 10 hours while ICE officers detained an illegal alien who they claim is wanted for murder in Colombia at his apartment complex.
“He has a homicide conviction in Colombia and was sentenced to 21 years there,” ICE Houston Director Bret Bradford said. “He entered the United States illegally in February of 2024 was given a court date for an immigration hearing and released. He did not show up for that court date, so in March of this year, he was ordered removed by an immigration judge here in the United States.
“The biggest thing for me is public safety,” Bradford said.
According to ICE, 262 of the 422 arrests are for criminal convictions, 34 are for pending convictions, 126 are for other immigration violations, and 229 are for final removal orders.
Another illegal alien apprehended during the operation was a 72-year-old Mexican immigrant who had been ordered deported from the United States in 2018 and had been convicted of homicide, robbery, stealing and assault.
During the operation, a 40-year-old twice-deported criminal alien from Mexico was seen attempting to flee in his truck and then on foot before being apprehended. According to ICE, Hector Castillo-Garcia was convicted of many crimes while illegally in the United States, including arson, aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon, and driving while intoxicated.
The Houston ICE Field Office has an operations center staffed by analysts who are dedicated to establishing these targets.
“They are doing the database research to get the worst of the worst, the ones who have the most significant threat to public safety,” Bradford said. “And then we want to look at the information we have on that individual, make sure it’s a viable target, make sure we have good addresses, go out and do surveillance so we can see if we can a pattern of the subjects’ movements and behavior. So, we want to kind of combine the worst of the worst plus the ones we have the most likelihood of encountering and arresting, trying to merge those two things together to come up with the top targets.”
ICE is also stepping up its efforts to remove illegal migrants by quickly transferring those with final removal orders to designated centers, where they are deported back to their home countries.
According to the ICE field director, this “hub and spoke” approach has only recently begun to expedite the deportation procedure.
“We can arrest the individual this morning, process him this afternoon, and have him on a removal flight this evening, same day, saving taxpayer cost and just making it more efficient and expedited process to get these folks out of the country,” said Bradford.
Fox News has exclusive footage of 80 inmates in Houston boarding one of the flights heading for the El Paso, Texas, hub.
Total # of Aliens Arrested by ICE Houston During Operation: 422
Breakdown of Arrests:
Criminal Convictions: 262
Pending convictions: 34
Other Immigration Violations: 126
Final Orders of Removal: 229
Breakdown of Criminal Convictions:
Aggravated Assault: 24
Assault: 35
Burglary: 6
Driving While Intoxicated: 48
Narcotics-related Offenses: 37
Forgery/Fraud: 10
Obstruction/Resisting Arrest: 21
Murder: 1
Robbery: 6
Sexual Assault (adult): 6
Sexual Assault-Child/Minor: 5
Smuggling Aliens: 10
Terroristic Threat: 5
Vehicle Theft: 6
Weapons Offense: 9
Gang Members/Affiliates Arrested: 5
