Border Patrol agents in Texas have apprehended a convicted killer who illegally reentered the United States after his deportation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Tuesday.
The arrest took place on Sept. 27 in CBP’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, which covers 320 miles of border in southeastern Texas. Among a group of six captured illegal immigrants was a Honduran national, who has been convicted in Miami, Florida, of homicide, according to CBP.
The man was sentenced to 18 months in prison and three years of probation for the offense, and was subsequently removed from the United States, CBP said. If convicted of illegal reentry after removal, which is a federal crime, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
Later that day, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers requested assistance over a suspected stash house operation. CBP agents responded and apprehended 12 illegal immigrants. Those individuals were from Ecuador, Central America, Mexico, and Peru, and DPS troopers took custody of one person to be charged with smuggling and running the stash house.
According to the CBP, Border Patrol agents around the nation so far in fiscal year 2021 have found more than 440 illegal immigrant stash houses just in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. Agents have also arrested 325 gang members, of which more than 150 were arrested in Rio Grande Valley.
The news comes after President Joe Biden said some Border Patrol agents will “pay for” the way they allegedly “whipped” Haitian nationals seeking to evade officers at the Texas-Mexico border, according to media reports which turned out to be untrue. In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said his state is willing to hire any agent worried that the Biden administration might fire them.
“I will hire you to help Texas secure our border,” Abbott said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked by the host whether he was “troubled” by photos showing mounted agents trying to detain Haitian immigrants near Del Rio, Texas, on horseback.
“The person who took those pictures said that the characterization that the Democrats have made about the Border Patrol using them as whips, whipping people who were coming across the border, is false,” Abbott said. “They were simply maneuvering horses.”
“I want them to know something: If they are at risk of losing their job at a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas,” he said.
