Previously Deported MS-13 Gang Member Arrested at Border

Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector arrested a previously deported MS-13 gang member after he illegally crossed the border in southern Arizona.

The agents working the area south of Arivaca, Arizona, Saturday evening discovered a group of five men who recently crossed the border without documentation. Agents quickly moved in and arrested the men, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

Agents transported the men to the Border Patrol station for processing and a background check. That check revealed one of the men was previously deported after receiving multiple felony convictions.

Agents also determined that man, a 34-year-old Honduran national named Jorge Antonio Avila-Rodas, to be a member of the hyper-violent transnational criminal gang, MS-13.

Avila’s criminal history includes felony convictions for first- and second-degree burglary in Oregon. He also has a history of immigration violations.

Avila now faces a federal felony charge of illegal re-entry after removal as a felon.

Another criminal alien with a similar conviction record from Oregon now sits in a Portland jail after he sexually assaulted two women, Breitbart Texas reported. Portland police previously arrested that man, 31-year-old Sergio Jose Martinez, in December but Sheriff Mike Reese’s sanctuary policies prohibited him being turned over to immigration officials for prosecution on felony re-entry charges. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers previously deported Martinez 20 times.

Officials with ICE confirmed in an email response to inquiries from Breitbart Texas that Sheriff Reese’s office arrested Martinez and had him in custody in their jail on December 7, 2016. Immigration officers immediately “lodged an immigration detainer against him at that time requesting that the agency be notified prior to his release,” ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice stated. “However, despite the detainer, local authorities released Mr. Martinez back into the community the following day without providing any notification to ICE.”

Sheriff Reese says turning over criminal aliens to ICE damages “community trust.”

“It simply worries me that we’ve spent so much time and energy building community trust and something outside of our control may damage that,” the sheriff told Sharyl Attkisson during an interview on Full Measure in April. His comments were about working with immigration officers to remove criminal aliens.

Kice concluded, “This case underscores yet again why immigration detainers are such a crucial enforcement tool for furthering public safety and why it is highly problematic when jurisdictions choose to ignore them.”