ICE Houston arrests 3,593 criminal illegal immigrants during government shutdown

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston arrested 3,593 criminal illegal immigrants in southern Texas during the government shutdown from October 1 to November 12.

Among those arrested were 67 sex offenders, 13 murderers, 51 child predators, 366 criminal aliens convicted of DWIs, 261 convicted of aggravated assault, and 103 convicted of burglary or theft. The arrests also included 23 gang members, including an MS-13 member charged with a triple homicide in Dallas.

Brayan Josue Pineda-Ayala, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant and MS-13 gang member from Honduras, was apprehended. He was released into the United States by the Biden administration in May 2024 and went on to allegedly commit a triple homicide in Texas. He was arrested by ICE on October 7 and transferred to Dallas County Jail to face his alleged crimes, and a detainer was lodged.

Also arrested was Baldomero Perez-Quezada, a 56-year-old criminal illegal immigrant who has been removed from the country four times. He is a convicted child predator from Mexico and was arrested on October 17. He was encountered by the Biden administration at the Edinburg Police Department in 2023 following his arrest for giving a false ID to law enforcement. Perez-Quezada was not apprehended under the Biden administration, and later preyed on a child, which led to a conviction for sexual indecency with a child earlier this year.

Other criminal convictions and charges included aggravated kidnapping, drug-related offenses, making terroristic threats, human smuggling, human trafficking, and more.

“Our entire team understands how critical ICE’s mission is to public safety and national security, and despite many of them going without pay, they continued to show up every day and give everything they had to protect this community from dangerous criminal illegal alien gang members, child predators, murderers and rapists,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operation Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford. “As a result of those efforts, 51 dangerous child predators are no longer free to prey on our children, 10 fugitives have been apprehended and will now face justice for their alleged offenses, and thousands of other violent criminal aliens have been removed from local communities throughout Southeast Texas and will be removed from the United States.”