A migrant family from Venezuela illegally crosses the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas, at the border with Mexico on June 30, 2022. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
Following a four-day manhunt, the illegal immigrant accused of shooting and killing five neighbors, including a 9-year-old boy, in Cleveland, Texas, was arrested on May 2 after authorities received a tip on his whereabouts.
Francisco Oropesa, 38, was taken into custody without incident in Cut and Shoot, Texas, authorities said during a press conference following his arrest. Cut and Shoot is a small town about six miles east of Conroe.
Oropesa, a Mexican national, had been in the country illegally for years and had been deported at least four times from the United States, most recently in 2016, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told The Epoch Times.
The Border Patrol Tactical Unit, known as BORTAC, found Oropesa hiding under some laundry in a closet at the home of a family member about 20 miles from where the brutal killings occurred.
“In small towns like Cleveland, Texas, the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP]—in particular, the U.S. Border Patrol—provide integral law enforcement to local authorities, protecting and serving the communities they live in,” CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement on May 2 after Oropesa’s arrest.
Oropesa is charged with five counts of first-degree murder and is being held in the San Jacinto County Jail on a $7.5 million bond.
Divimara Nava, 52, who was identified as Oropesa’s wife during acourt hearingon Wednesday, was arrested shortly after midnight on after May 3. Jail records list Nava as “not married.” She is accused of attempting to help Oropesa flee the country.
Nava is charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon, a third-degree felony that carries a sentence of two to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. Nava is being held in the Montgomery County jail on a $250,000 bond.
The combined reward for Oropesa’s whereabouts increased to $100,000 on Tuesday before the suspect’s arrest.
Francisco Oropesa. (San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Oropesa’s Criminal and Deportation History
Oropesa was first deported in March of 2009 after an immigration judge ordered his removal, a spokesperson for ICE told The Epoch Times.
He returned unlawfully but was caught about six months later and deported again in September of 2009.
In January of 2012, Oropesa was deported once again after a driving while intoxicated conviction and jail sentence, the spokesperson said.
In July of 2016, he was apprehended and deported for a fourth time.
Oropesa unlawfully returned again.
Last year, Oropesa’s “wife” filed a protective order against him, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said during a press conference. It was not immediately clear if Nava is the woman Capers was referring to as Oropesa’s wife.
Charges were filed against Oropesa, but he left the county, and Capers said authorities were unable to serve the warrant for his arrest. A few days later, the woman signed a non-prosecution statement, and the district attorney dropped the charges.
Millions of Illegal Immigrants
U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 2.2 million immigrants at the border in fiscal year (FY) 2022, according to the agency’s data. The fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
As of March, CBP has encountered more than 1.3 million immigrants crossing the border into the United States for FY 2023.
The number of total encounters jumped 23 percent in March 2023, with 191,900, up nearly 23 percent from 156,138 the prior month, according to a CBP press release in April.
In March 2023, over two-thirds, 69 percent of all southwest border encounters were single adults, a 19 percent increase over February.
There were 43,958 repeat encounters, or 23 percent, and 123,898 unique encounters.
The rate of repeat encounters with a prior encounter in the previous 12 months was 23 percent, compared to an average one-year re-encounter rate of 14 percent for fiscal years 2014–2019, according to the release.
Of those encountered, 46 percent were processed for removal under Title 42, which is set to expire on May 11.
In 2021, CBP encountered more than 1.6 million, up nearly 1.2 million over 2020, when there were about 405,000 immigrants encountered at the southern border.
Low Arrest and Removal Rates
CBP arrested 12,028 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions in fiscal year 2022, up from 10,763 the previous year, according to CBP data.
More than 5,100 have been arrested to date for the current fiscal year.
Convictions include assault, burglary, homicide, driving while intoxicated, drug possession or trafficking, illegal entry or reentry, and sexual offenses, among others.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) apprehended 43,396 “noncitizens” with criminal histories during FY 2022.
“[T]his group had 198,498 charges and convictions for assault; 8,164 for sex offenses and sexual assault; 5,554 for weapons offenses; 1,501 for homicide-related offenses, and 1,114 for kidnapping, demonstrating the serious public risks associated with many of the noncitizens ERO targets and arrests in the interior,” the ICE Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report stated. (pdf)
Haitians deported from the United States arrive at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 28, 2021. (Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images)
ERO deported 72,177 noncitizens in FY 2022, up from non-detained FY 2021, when 59,011 were removed from the country. (pdf)
By the end of FY 2022, more than 1.2 million non-detained immigrants had final orders of removal, and more than 3.5 million cases were pending on court dockets.
The non-detained docket spiked 29 percent over the previous fiscal year. At the end of FY 2021, there were nearly 1.2 million orders of removal and 2.5 million pending cases.
The number of those detained and deported has fallen from prior years while the number of border crossings has climbed dramatically.
In FY 2020, there were 103,603 illegal immigrants arrested and 185,884 deportations. (pdf)
In FY 2019, ERO arrested 143,099 and removed 267,258. (pdf)
Policy and Enforcement
President Joe Biden began making swift changes to immigration policy and enforcement after taking office in 2021.
In February of 2021, a group of 60 House Democrats called on the newly appointed Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees ICE and CBP, among other agencies, to fulfill Biden’s campaign promises.
The letter urged the administration to end Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programs such as 287(g), which allows state and local police officers to act as ICE agents to arrest and detain illegal immigrants.
“We respectfully urge you to end these programs and practices—and launch a new era of a more just and welcoming immigration enforcement system divorced from local law enforcement agencies,” the lawmakers wrote.
The program has been de-escalated over the past two years, explained Ken Oliver, senior director of Engagement & Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Center for Immigration Studies called the Biden administration’s policies a “threat to public safety.”
“Sheriffs across the nation have reported to the Center for Immigration Studies that the Biden administration has been refusing to take custody of most criminal aliens identified through 287(g), forcing sheriffs to release counties criminals back onto the streets,” the organization wrote on its website in February of 2022.
The DHS Enforcement Life Cycle Reports “show that unless illegal immigrants are being held in detention, whether by federal or local law enforcement—and this was true under the Trump administration—they are unlikely to be deported,” Oliver told The Epoch Times.
Oliver said that the local and federal partnerships help to close the loop because the crimes committed on the interior are typically at the local level.
“They [local authorities] catch them, and then they would report them,” Oliver said.
But the majority of counties in Texas and across the nation no longer participate in the 287(g) program due to a lack of support from the Biden administration.
For example, out of 254 counties in the state of Texas, only 26 counties participate.
“The local authorities do have a role to play even if the Biden administration doesn’t uphold their end of the bargain,” Oliver continued.
Montogomery County, where Oropesa was taken into custody, is part of the program. Nearby San Jacinto and Liberty Counties do not participate.
“Lives could have been saved, and this would not have happened” if Oropesa had been arrested and deported before the night of the attack, Oliver said.
But the Biden administration has prioritized alternatives to detention over actual detention for illegal immigrants who are apprehended, arguing that just being in the country illegally is not a reason to detain a person. The policy shift has led to fewer detentions.
(Reuters/ Screenshot via NTD)
In March, Biden’s mass release policy was struck down by Judge T. Kent Wetherell of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, had sued the Biden administration over the policy.
The state argued that Biden’s “destruction of the Trump administration’s immigration structures left border patrol with no other options except to release almost all immigrants encountered.”
Wetherall, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, called Biden’s actions “akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’ sign on the southern border.”
“The evidence established that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and a little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing ‘alternatives to detention’ over actual detention and by releasing more than a million aliens into the country—on ‘parole’ or pursuant to the exercise of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ under a wholly inapplicable statute—without even initiating removal proceedings,” Wetherell wrote in his 109-page opinion.
The judge’s ruling affirmed “what we have known all along, President Biden is responsible for the crisis, and his unlawful policies make this country less safe,” Moody wrote in a press release after the ruling.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also applauded the decision. He said Biden’s “catch-and-release” agenda not only puts Americans in danger but also poses a massive financial burden for the state.
Other Rescinded Policies
In 2021, Mayorkas issued a memo directing ICE and CBP to limit enforcement in or near courthouses.
“Under the previous administration, these resource-intensive operations resulted in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of workers and were used as a tool by exploitative employers to suppress and retaliate against workers’ assertion of labor laws,” DHS said in a press release at the time.
Mayorkas also rescinded civil penalties for “failure to depart,” citing “no indication that these penalties promoted compliance with noncitizens’ departure obligations.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the DHS for comment.
Jana J. Pruet is an award-winning investigative journalist. She covers news in Texas with a focus on politics, energy, and crime. She has reported for many media outlets over the years, including Reuters, The Dallas Morning News, and TheBlaze, among others. She has a journalism degree from Southern Methodist University. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]
