PORTER, Texas

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently confirmed that the individual accused of kidnapping a teenage girl and her dog on Christmas Day is a Salvadoran immigrant who received a green card during the Obama administration. The incident involves 23-year-old Giovanni Rosales Espinoza, who allegedly abducted the 15-year-old girl at knifepoint while she was out walking her dog.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin remarked, “Giovanni Enrique Rosales Espinoza, originally from El Salvador, obtained a green card under the Obama administration. The crime he is accused of is horrific. Kidnapping a girl on Christmas is truly despicable.”

According to reports, the girl’s father used a family tracking app on his phone to locate his daughter and her captor. He discovered her with a half-naked man and successfully rescued both her and the dog.

Randy Clark of Breitbart provided details of the rescue:

Using the information from the parental control feature on his daughter’s phone, the father was led to a remote area roughly two miles away from where she had been abducted. He found her in a maroon pickup truck with a half-naked 23-year-old man inside.

The father managed to rescue his daughter from the truck and quickly informed law enforcement, prompting them to search for the suspect and his vehicle. Several witnesses at the scene were able to give a detailed description of the truck used during the kidnapping.

Deputies from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office located the suspect’s vehicle and arrested Giovanni Rosales Espinoza without incident. He now faces charges of aggravated kidnapping and child molestation and is currently being held without bail at the Montgomery County Jail.

The preliminary investigation found that the suspect had threatened the girl with a knife and abducted her from the street. Detectives from the Major Crimes Unit of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office are continuing to probe the kidnapping allegations.

Montgomery County Sheriff Wesley Doolittle expressed his concerns: “Christmas is intended to be a day of joy, but this man chose to shatter that joy by targeting children. I’m deeply proud of our sheriffs and detectives who worked so hard to swiftly apprehend and remove this dangerous predator from our community.”

DHS officials, however, did not disclose specifics regarding when, where, or how the suspect entered the United States.

Concluding her comments to Breitbart, McLaughlin stated, “Once he is convicted, he will face removal proceedings.”