Illegal immigrant MS-13 suspect gets stuck on business sign during failed rooftop escape in Houston

A suspected MS-13 gang member from El Salvador was arrested late last month after getting stuck on the sign of a Houston-area business while trying to run from federal immigration officers, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE identified the man as 29-year-old Marlon Odir Gomez Hernandez, an illegal immigrant who had previously been arrested in El Salvador for aggravated extortion alongside six other suspected MS-13 members.

Authorities said Gomez was spotted during a targeted enforcement operation on October 27 in the Houston area. When officers approached, he allegedly took off running, ducking into a laundromat and climbing through ceiling tiles to access the roof. From there, he tried to scale down the building but became stranded on the business’s large outdoor sign.

ICE officers eventually brought him down safely. Gomez was taken into custody and transferred to the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, where he remains pending the outcome of his immigration case.

“Once again, an illegal alien put the local community in danger by recklessly fleeing from ICE officers who were simply enforcing immigration laws that have been on the books for decades,” said Bret Bradford, ICE’s Houston field office director. “Unfortunately, this has become a daily occurrence for our officers here in Houston thanks to the violent rhetoric being spewed by elected officials encouraging illegal aliens to resist enforcement of the same laws they established.”

The incident comes amid a broader ICE crackdown in Texas on violent criminal aliens and gang members. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s administration, ICE Houston says it has arrested 356 illegal immigrant gang members, including MS-13 members, in the region. Collectively, those arrested had entered the US illegally over 1,400 times and racked up 1,685 criminal convictions, ranging from child sexual abuse and arson to theft and murder.

ICE officials said the operations are part of an ongoing federal initiative to remove what the agency calls “the worst of the worst” focusing on criminal aliens, gang affiliates, and repeat border offenders.

“Despite attempts by some to undermine the courageous work being done by our officers, the brave men and women of ICE continue to put their lives on the line every day to arrest violent transnational gang members, foreign fugitives, and dangerous criminal aliens,” said Gabriel Martinez, acting field office director for ICE Houston’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.