AUSTIN, Texas — A twenty-four year old Mexican national named Heriberto Montoya-Merino was deported back to Mexico earlier this month  by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). Montoya-Merino was wanted in connection with a murder back in Mexico.

Montoya-Merino had been residing in Bradley Beach, New Jersey until he was arrested on November 19, 2013. The Bradley Beach Police Department and the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office coordinated with ERO to detain him and process the deportation order, which was issued by an immigration judge in July of this year. ICE Air Operations (IAO) arranged a charter flight from New Jersey to Texas, where ERO officers turned him over to Mexican authorities at the Brownsville Port of Entry. He had previously been deported back to Mexico in 2013 and had reentered the United States illegally.

In a press release regarding this matter, John Tsoukaris, field office director of ERO Newark, discussed how ERO works to deport criminal aliens. “ICE takes its responsibility toward public safety very seriously. Individuals who flee their home country in order to avoid prosecution will be arrested by ERO,” he said. “ERO, working with our local and international law enforcement partners, will identify, locate and deport criminal aliens so they can face justice at home.”

ERO’s mission, as described on the ICE website, is “to identify arrest and remove aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the United States illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts.” Since October 1, 2009, ERO has deported more than 720 criminal aliens who were wanted in their home countries for serious crimes, including kidnapping, rape, and murder.

As Breitbart Texas has previously reported, the problem of criminals crossing the porous border with Mexico is unfortunately all too common. In June, Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby reported that the U.S. Border Patrol detained multiple murder suspects, sex offenders, and an MS-13 gang member in just one weekend in the Rio Grande Valley sector. An earlier report from Darby back in March discussed how ICE had deported more than 7,000 sex offenders from Texas in the previous three years, with over 860 in just the first two and a half months of this year. Many of these criminal aliens are caught repeatedly illegally entering the United States, only to return shortly after being deported over and over again.  

A search of court records does not show any cases regarding Montoya-Merino regarding crimes in the United States.

Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter at @rumpfshaker.