EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and removal officers in Houston arrested 422 suspected illegal immigrants during a weeklong operation.
During the operation, ICE officers targeted some of the most dangerous criminals, including an illegal migrant wanted in Colombia on murder charges.
Fox News exclusively embedded with officers for 10 hours as ICE officers arrested an illegal alien they say 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.
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"The biggest thing for me is public safety," Bradford said.
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Of the 422 arrests, 262 have criminal convictions, 34 have pending convictions, 126 have other immigration violations, and 229 had final orders of removal, according to ICE.
Another illegal alien removed during the operation was a 72-year-old migrant from Mexico who was ordered removed from the U.S. in 2018, and has been convicted of homicide, robbery, shoplifting and assault.
During the operation, a 40-year-old twice-deported criminal alien from Mexico was seen trying flee in his vehicle and then on foot before he eventually was captured. According to ICE, Hector Castillo-Garcia was convicted of several charges while in the U.S. illegally, including arson, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and driving while intoxicated.
The Houston ICE Field Office has an operation center with analysts dedicated to developing 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 ramping up its efforts to remove illegal migrants by swiftly transferring those with final removal orders to designated hubs, where they are deported immediately to their home countries.
This "hub and spoke" system, which speeds up the removal process, has just started recently, according to the ICE field director.
"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 got exclusive footage of 80 detainees in Houston boarding one of the flights bound for the El Paso, Texas, hub.
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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
