Fox News embeds with ICE pursuing targets, including illegal migrant wanted for sexual assault conviction
Fox News exclusively embedded this week with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations in Houston and got an inside look at day-to-day operations.
With a renewed focus on targeting criminal illegal migrants, the ERO Houston Field Office is seeing roughly two to three times the number of arrests, according to the director.
Early Wednesday morning, ERO officers first carefully strategized their targets and mapped out their action plan.
Among the target list was a twice-deported illegal migrant from El Salvador who was convicted of sexual assault of a child and managed to escape.
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Officers waited for Manuel Rivera-Perdomo, 30, to leave his home and get in his car before moving in on him and making the arrest.
"Let me see the order or something," Rivera-Perdomo, said.
"Get in the vehicle," one of the agents said.
Since his arrest, Rivera-Perdomo has remained at the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Texas, pending disposition of his immigration proceedings.
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"We are really looking at our public safety threats, national security threats, ERO Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said. "We're not looking to go out there and scare or terrorize communities. We're looking to make these communities safer, these folks, criminals like this individual here, they're victimizing those same communities."
According to Bradford, thousands of illegal migrants are on the target list in Houston alone. Bradford said that officers have filtered through them to determine which were viable targets, meaning ICE would have the intel to find and make the arrest.
While ICE officers were always making arrests in the community, Bradford said the priority on arresting these illegal migrants has allowed them to work closely now with federal agencies including the FBI, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
On the same day as the Fox News ride along, FBI Houston apprehended two suspects linked to Tren de Aragua and handed them over to ICE.
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Also on the ICE target list was an illegal migrant from Mexico with an alien smuggling conviction who already had been deported once.
"He’s re-entered the United States. The last time he was removed from U.S. was 2005, and he has evaded capture since," an ICE officer was heard saying to the other agents before the arrest.
Officers were following Valente Cambron-Villa’s movements for days. They follow the patterns and behaviors of each target to make sure officers make a safe arrest, according to Bradford.
From conducting surveillance for several days, officers knew that around 6:45 a.m., Cambron-Villa would leave his home to go to work.
"Target’s coming out of the house," one of the ICE officers said.
Officers swarmed his truck and made the arrest in just minutes.
"It is extremely rewarding and to see these criminals taken out of the community so they can’t reoffend," Bradford said. "That’s the thing you can’t measure, the crimes that you prevent by taking these folks out of the community. That’s, to me, what’s very rewarding and what I try to remind my folks of all the time."