An illegal Honduran immigrant accused of raping an 8-year-old girl in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was arrested in 2019 after being mistakenly released from local custody.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) New Orleans office announced Monday that 28-year-old Carlos Vasquez was captured and arrested at a Baton Rouge workshop on Wednesday.
ICE said Vazquez entered the United States illegally for an unspecified amount of time on vacation and was mistakenly released from local custody after being convicted of a sex crime in 2019. ICE added that Vazquez remains at large.
On April 27, 2017, ERO Baton Rouge filed a complaint for Vazquez to be held in the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail after he was arrested on charges of indecent assault on a juvenile, first-degree rape, and verbal sexual assault of an 8-year-old girl. Ta.
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Migrants crossing the border (left) and illegal immigrants in detention (Frederick J. Brown/AFP, left, John Moore/Getty Images, right)
Two years later, on November 18, 2019, ICE announced that Vasquez was found guilty of amended sexual assault charges and sentenced to six months in prison with probation. On the same day, the court accepted his guilty plea to a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, fined him $500, paid court costs of $235, and placed him on one year of supervised probation.
However, on the same day, the Franklin Parish Detention Center mistakenly released him from custody without notifying ERO Baton Rouge.
Vazquez is currently in federal custody, according to ICE.
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FILE – Carlos Vazquez, 28, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, was wrongly released after being convicted of a sex crime in 2019. He was just arrested last week. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
According to data provided by ICE to lawmakers last month. illegal immigration Convictions for sex crimes and murder can be carried out on the streets.
The agency provided data on national data on undocumented immigrants with criminal charges or convictions to Republican Rep. Tony Gonzalez of Texas. Data as of July 2024 is broken down by people in detention and people not in custody, known as the non-detainee register. Non-custodial records include undocumented immigrants who have received a final order of removal or are in removal proceedings but are not in ICE custody. Currently, more than 7 million people are on its roster.
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Tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants with convictions for sex crimes and murder may be on the streets of the United States, according to data provided by ICE to lawmakers last month. (Peter Garber)
Among those not in custody, there are 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 with pending criminal charges, according to the data.
“As of July 21, 2024, there are 662,566 non-citizens with criminal records in ICE's national registry, 13,099 of whom have been convicted of murder!” Gonzalez said in a statement. He said this: “Americans should be safe in their communities.”
The Biden administration came under fire for releasing many migrants who came to the U.S. border into the interior, but it also did so because of its focus on prioritizing public safety and national security threats. This coincided with a sharp decline in deportations. The number of people removed in fiscal 2023 was 142,580, a significant increase from 72,177 in fiscal 2022 and 59,011 in fiscal 2021, but 267,258 in fiscal 2019, which was the highest under the Trump administration. It still falls short of that.
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Meanwhile, the number of illegal immigrants listed on non-detention records has skyrocketed from 3.7 million in fiscal year 2021 to nearly 4.8 million in fiscal year 2022 and more than 7 million in fiscal year 2023.
Fox News' Bill Melugin and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
